Death is Part of the Process
by Licoriceallsorts
Summary: An epic re-telling combining Crisis Core and Before Crisis from the POV of the Turks. Stars Reno, Tseng, Rude, Cissnei, Zack, Aerith, Veld, Rufus, and all the BC Turks; cameo appearances by entire VII cast. Drama, Romance, Action, Comedy, and more.
1. Reno and the Cat

**CHAPTER ONE: RENO AND THE CAT**

**[_in which Reno and Cissnei wreak havoc, and Reno does something which surprises himself]_**

In the year when LOVELESS went through its third cast change, and Gentleman Joe first rode the Invincible Teioh to victory in the Chocobo Challenge Cup, and Wutai was preparing to lay down its arms in defeat; when Sephiroth was still a hero, and the Shin-Ra Electric Company seemed like a good place to work, and the killing had not yet become routine – Reno and Cissnei were sent on a mission.

Three days earlier, thieves had broken into the R&D section of the Weapons Development Department at Shinra HQ and stolen the formula for a delayed-action, broad-range Stun fusion materia that was still in its experimental stages. At about the same time, routine radio frequency scans undertaken by the intelligence arm of Public Safety Maintenance had uncovered a small cell of Crescent Unit operatives based in the Sector Seven Slums. When closer surveillance revealed that these Wuteng guerillas were the ones who had stolen the formula, and that their intention was to make and use the materia to disrupt the public transportation system in Midgar, the job became one for the Turks. Reno, who had just turned twenty-one, and Cissnei, nineteen, were ordered to recover the formula, eliminate the Crescent operatives, and destroy their hidden lair.

_Do it discretely_, Tseng had told them. That meant silencers and no materia. The Sector Seven slums were becoming a refuge for outlaws and insurgents from

every hue of the political spectrum, and the last thing Commander Veld wanted was to spark off a riot that would give Heidegger an excuse to send in the troops.

_Remember to clean up afterwards_, Tseng had added, looking pointedly at Reno.

But the cell proved larger than expected, and though Cissnei took out three of the targets with her shuriken and Reno another two with his mag-rod and a third with his gun, two more, lurking in the shadows, nearly managed to slip away unseen through a broken window. The first got out; the second, cutting his hand on a piece of glass, cried aloud and stumbled. Instantly Reno fired his rod. A spark flashed through the room, followed by a sound like bacon popping in the pan, a cry of pain, and the sweet stink of burnt flesh. Almost in the same moment there was a burst of gunfire. A bullet pierced the sleeve of Reno's jacket, searing his arm. He dropped the EMR, which was still switched on. It landed on a pile of greasy rags; the rags burst into flame. All this happened in less time than it takes to tell. Cissnei, gathering her scrambled wits, raised her gun, then hesitated. Already the shack was filling with smoke. She could see nothing clearly.

Meanwhile the target with the gun had pulled the injured target through the window. They ran off up the alley towards the busy market place.

Cissnei dashed after them. Reno grabbed his rod and followed. The targets were still in range. She braced her feet, took aim, and fired.

"Ciss, no!" Reno exclaimed, too late.

The targets kept running. She had missed. Cursing, she lifted her gun to fire again. Reno pushed it down with his rod.

"Look," he said.

At the mouth of the alley a woman had fallen to the ground, clutching her arm and screaming.

"Oh, fuck!" cried Cissnei. "I just shot a civilian!"

Around the bleeding woman the crowds drew back in alarm, turning this way and that, unsure where the danger lay. Someone spotted the smoke rising from the burning shack: there was pointing, shouting, pushing, shoving… Panic seized the crowd, and into that panic the two targets disappeared and were swept away.

"This fire'll take out the whole sector if we don't do something," said Reno.

"Use some Blizzara – Oh shit, no materia -"

"Call Tseng. I'll deal with the casualty." Next moment Reno was at the woman's side, pushing her sleeve up to examine the wound.

"You're Shinra!" cried the man standing next to her. He had paled at the sight of the blood, and was swaying as if he might faint. He was young; the woman was young, too, not much more than a girl, fair-haired and too thin.

"Her arm's broken." Reno told him. "It won't kill her, but she needs to see a doctor. Give her this." Reno took a green pill from his inside pocket. "And take this." He pushed a fistful of gil into the man's hand. "And go up to the Dispensary in Sector One. They'll take care of her. Show them this card – shit, I'm out of cards." Reno looked up at Cissnei, who had just joined them. "Give him one of yours, Ciss. What did Tseng say?"

"He's sending Rude and Mozo with the water cannon. He wants us to pursue the targets."

"Gotta go, babe," said Reno to the injured woman. "We're going after the terrorists who shot you. No one escapes from the Turks! C'mon, partner, let's move."

They ran across the now-deserted shopping area into another alley, turned a corner, and found themselves facing the tall chain link fence that barred the public from access to the plate's support tower. Dead end.

Cissnei wiped a hand over her eyes and looked up at Reno. Down here, even his hair was just another shade of grey. The eternal twilight of the slums robbed everything of colour.

"Nice damage control, Red," she said. "But my ass is still toast. Tseng's livid. I'm such a fucking idiot! I could have killed her! And now we've lost the targets. Did we manage to get the data?"

"Burnt, I'm thinking," said Reno.

Cissnei groaned. "I might as well just shoot myself right here and save the Chief the bullet."

He grabbed her shoulder and shook it. "Stop talking like that. We got rid of their hideout, didn't we? And that girl's going to be OK. And we haven't lost the targets. They went that way." He jerked his head in the direction of the station.

"How do you know?" she asked, as they broke once more into a run.

"I can smell the one I burned. His trail's in the air."

"What's it smell of?"

"Pork. Sulphur. That smell plastic sockets have when the fuse shorts. You can't smell it?"

"Nuh-uh. I'll just follow your nose, you Shinra dog, you."

Reno didn't miss a beat. "Guess that must mean you're my bitch."

"In your dreams, Red."

They grinned at each other, running shoulder to shoulder. Pumped with adrenaline, Reno's feet flew: he could have sped right round Midgar for the sheer joy of running. Cissnei began to fall behind.

"Keep up, loser," Reno called to her over his shoulder.

They came to the Sector Seven station. He sprinted along the deserted platform and jumped down onto the tracks. Ahead of him the train graveyard loomed. Old locomotives sat brooding in the dusk. The air was thick with the smells of rotting velvet, rust and engine oil. Angry graffiti, mostly anti-Shinra, had been scrawled along the roofs of toppled box-cars. He waited, and a moment later Cissnei was beside him, panting slightly.

"Ssh," he said.

They focused all their senses.

There was no breeze here. Nothing stirred.

From one of the abandoned carriages came the faintest scraping of a shoe against wood, and a muffled groan.

"You take the door at this end," said Reno. "I'll take the other. Count to twenty, then go in."

Cissnei nodded.

As it turned out, her counting was off by three seconds. While he was still coiling himself to spring, he heard the 'poc' of her silenced gun, and the next moment he was knocked backwards as someone flew through the door and hit the ground running. Scrambling to his feet, Reno took aim and fired. The target veered to the left and kept going, unharmed.

"Shit!" cried Reno. "I missed! How could I have missed?"

He was about to give chase, when a strangled cry from inside the carriage brought him up short. Was Cissnei hurt? Holstering his gun, he drew the EMR and went in.

The smell of blood hit him first, a tang of iron on the back of his tongue. He saw the target sprawled on the floor in a mess of his own brains, neatly neutralized by a shot that had gone in through a small hole in the forehead and out through a much larger hole in the back of his skull. Cissnei was crouched in the corner, bent almost double.

"Ciss? You okay?"

She stood up. Reno saw that she was cradling something in her arms, a furry small thing like a child's toy. For a moment he wondered if somehow some kid, playing in here, had got caught in the crossfire – until he realized that what she was holding was a cat. A dead cat.

"I didn't mean to," she said in a small voice. "It took the ricochet."

She sounded ready to burst into tears. Reno couldn't have that: he hated it when tough girls cried. A little awkwardly, he put a hand on her arm. "Ciss, don't go all girly on me now, hey? You just blew that guy's brains out. Are you seriously gonna start bawling over some scrawny old cat? Come on."

Her eyes burned in her white face. "That man deserved to die. But I hate wasting life for no reason, Reno. I _hate_ it."

"It's just a cat. Shit, Ciss…" Why was she looking at him like that? What was he supposed to say? "Look, you've probably done the poor runt a favour. It's nothing but skin and bone. Probably strayed down here from the plate. The rats round here are bigger'n it is. At least you gave it a quick death." Aiming for a sterner, Veld-like tone, he added, "C'mon, Turk, we've got a mission to complete. Pull yourself together."

That seemed to do the trick. Cissnei stood a little straighter, inhaled a deep breath. Her lips weren't trembling any longer. Reno pressed his advantage.

"That's more like it. Now put the thing down. We've still got – "

A bullet sang past his ear.

Reno dropped to the floor. "The fuck!" he hissed furiously. "He came back!"

Cissnei's shuriken flashed silver through the air.

She missed, and the target ran, and the Turks pursued him. Through the train graveyard they played their deadly hide and seek, and in the end they caught their target, and killed him, and after searching his body and finding nothing, Reno used his rod to reduce the corpse to a pile of greasy ash. Then he called Tseng. Of course with the boss there was no question of white lies. As briefly as possible, Reno summarized all the ways in which the mission had gone wrong: the miscounting of the targets, the escape of two through the window; the fire, the wounded civilian, the panicked crowd; their failure to find the stolen formula….

The only detail he omitted was the dead cat.

Tseng said, "You can go back and search the body in the carriage. Tell Cissnei to go home now. The Commander will see you both tomorrow morning."

A hot little wire of something like fear knotted itself in Reno's gut; determinedly, by sheer strength of will, he forced it to relax. Shutting the phone with a snap, he turned to meet his partner's big round eyes.

She said, "I've landed you in it, haven't I, Red?"

"We both screwed up. The fire was my own fault."

"When they shot at you - and then the fire – that threw me. And then the woman, and that cat… I lost my focus. There's no excuse. Sorry for being such a fuck-up. I know it doesn't make up for it, but do you want me to finish down here? You could go home."

Reno shrugged. "Nah, I'm good. You go home, it's OK."

"But your arm – "

"It's fine."

"But – "

"Don't argue with me. I could do with the overtime."

"Yeah, right. Hey, Reno – thanks for not mentioning that cat to Tseng. I know I was pretty amateurish tonight, but I'd hate for him and the Chief to think I was… you know… _soft_."

"You? Soft? You're a diamond."

"Am I? That's a nice way to put it. Anyway, it won't happen again, I promise."

"Yeah, yeah – go on, take your skinny butt home and let me finish up here."

She gave him a flip of the hand in farewell, and set off along the tracks. With his rod slung across his shoulders, and his other hand in his pocket, he stood and watched her go, her little upright figure growing smaller in the distance. She was about to pass behind a locomotive and disappear from his sight, when he called out to her, "Hey, Ciss?"

She looked round, smiling. Her teeth, and the whites of her eyes, caught what little light there was.

"It's good to be working with you again," he told her. "Next time, don't be gone so long."

Cissnei mimed a salute, then laughed, and darted away.

Reno made his way back to the dead cat's railway carriage. Carefully he searched through all the folds and pockets of the target's clothing, but found neither disks nor printouts. Most likely the formula had been destroyed in the fire…. Not that that was going to cut much ice with the Commander. Ramping the EMR to full voltage, Reno incinerated the corpse, and was getting ready to leave, when he heard a noise.

A noise like the feeble miaow of a starving, wounded, suffering, not quite dead cat.

It had opened an eye, and was looking at him.

"Fucking hell. You're one tough little bastard, aren't you?" said Reno.

It was a jumble of bones in a fur sack, sides heaving, tail limp. And it had a hole the size of a five-gil piece in its gut.

Reno could see it was beyond help. He drew his gun, intending to put the animal out of its misery. Cissnei would never need to know. He cocked the trigger.

Something moved in the far corner of the carriage. A streak of pink and green, shadowy, stealthy, and swift – but he was swifter, oh yes, always, because he was Reno, the fastest of the Turks, never outrun or outmaneuvered. With the butt of his pistol he broke the thing's neck, and it turned out to be nothing but a monster, a little cripshay that evaporated in front of his eyes, leaving behind on the carriage floor the contents of its stomach: fifty-three gil in coins, a half-digested rat, a candy wrapper, some slimy string, and a small bottle of potion.

"Hey," he exclaimed, surprised. "Score."

He glanced from the cat to the potion and back to the cat again. The coincidence seemed improbable, but maybe magic always worked that way.

It was just a small bottle of potion, enough for a small life.

If he could save this cat, Cissnei would be happy.

Did potion even work on animals? He had no idea. He knew nothing about animals. Monsters, yeah, he knew them all right. But nice little family pet type animals? Not a clue. Still, he supposed it was worth a try. Taking a firm hold of the cat's head, he used his thumb and his middle finger to force its jaws open, and tipped the contents of the bottle down its throat.

The effect was almost instantaneous. A momentary glow, a sparkling aura, radiated from the little body, appearing most intense around its wound. The cat's eyes widened. Life came back to it. Hissing, it lashed its tail and showed its claws. Reno grimaced in sympathy. Potion wasn't as bad as cure materia, but it still hurt. You got nothing for nothing in this world.

Within seconds, the bullet wound in the cat's belly had closed up. By tomorrow the scar would be gone. Its fur felt softer, thicker, under his hand. Deep inside the cat's body vibrations revved like the engine of a motorbike, or the ghost of one of the dead locomotives. It closed its eyes, and fell asleep, yet even in its sleep it continued to purr.

Reno took off his jacket, laid it on the floor, placed the sleeping cat inside, and carefully rolled it up, not too tight, not too loose. Fishing his PHS from his pocket, he tried to call Tseng, but the number was engaged, so he left a voice mail to let the boss know the mission was complete and he was knocking off for the night. With his gun back in its shoulder holster, his EMR swinging from its belt loop, and his rolled jacket tucked into the crook of his arm, he headed for the station to catch the last train back to the upper city.

* * *

Reno's apartment was small, nothing more than a studio with a kitchenette. He could have afforded something bigger – few twenty-one year olds in Midgar were earning his kind of salary – but what would have been the point? He wasn't home much and he didn't own much. Just the wide-screen TV, the DVD player, and a few bits and pieces of souvenirs picked up here and there which he only hung on to because he kept forgetting to tell the cleaning lady to throw them away. She had tidied his magazines into three stacks on the coffee table: _Helicopter Today, Booty Babes, _and _Practical Electronics_. Shinra paid for two of the subscriptions.

Reno put the bundled jacket on his bed and unrolled it. The cat was still sleeping. It – or he, judging by the two taut little balls of fur jutting beneath its tail – was a ginger tabby. It didn't look very big, even for a cat. Maybe it was still a kitten? When did a kitten turn into a cat? Reno didn't know. Leaving it to sleep, he took a can of cold Sephiroth-brand beer ('_for that heroic taste')_ from the fridge and went out onto the balcony.

His apartment was on the top floor of a building near the edge of Sector 8, in a cul-de-sac just off the main road. The apartment's balcony faced outwards, away from the buffed metal tubes and mirrored glass of the Shinra building dominating the inward skyline. From up here, on those rare days when rays of sunlight broke through the clouds, he could catch a glimpse of distant hills. It was the next best thing to flying a helicopter. Sometimes he dragged his mattress onto the balcony and slept here.

Tipping his chair back, he put his feet up on the balcony rail, popped the tab on his beer, and drank deeply, looking up at the sky. Of course it was never truly night even in upper Midgar, just as it was never truly day. The low-lying clouds and the halogen glow from the mako reactors put paid to that. It was hard at first for outsiders, people like Natalya, from Mideel, and Mozo, from Costa, to get used to Midgar's darkness, but for Reno, who had never lived anywhere else, moving up from the slums to the Plate had been like coming into the light. And after a while the city's sepia palette and insomniac moodiness started to feel like just the right kind of backdrop for one's life. Edgy and elegant. Cool.

He was lighting a cigarette when the cat jumped onto his stomach.

"Agh!" he cried. The chair rocked; the cigarette snapped in his fingers, and he dropped the mako lighter. It bounced once, skittered under the railings, and was gone. The cat leapt down again.

"Shit!"

He glared at the cat. It gazed back unblinkingly. It was sitting in the way cats do, very upright, tail wrapped round its paws with a Tseng-like precision.

"Don't sneak up on me like that!"

The cat was inscrutable.

"What do you want?"

The cat looked at him harder, as if to say: _what are you, stupid_?

"You're hungry? You want food?"

Reno went into the kitchen. In his cupboard there was a tin of baked beans that had passed its expiry date and a bag of microwave popcorn. He didn't need to look in the fridge, because he already knew that all it held were two six-packs of beer, a large tin of dark roast coffee, a block of tofu that had been there for over a year, and a half-eaten Moogle Munch.

When he put on his jacket he saw the bullet hole in its sleeve. Now he'd have to submit a requisition for a new one. More form-filling. Great.

He rode the elevator down to the ground floor of his building, where there was an all-night minimart, garishly lit and smelling unpleasantly of cheese.

"Got any cat food?"

"Third aisle on the left," said the Wuteng at the till, not lifting his eyes from his newspaper.

Reno took three cans and a bag of the dry stuff, and added a new lighter, buffed chrome, at the checkout.

Back in the apartment he opened a can and put it on the floor. The cat approached with extreme caution, nostrils flaring, whiskers twitching, tail held stiffly tense. Reno was fascinated, and more than a little impressed, by its self control. He'd expected the starving animal to pounce on the food and wolf it down in seconds. Were all cats as wary as this? Or had this one learned the hard way?

He went to take a shower. When he came back, the can was licked clean. The cat stared at him. "More?" He opened another can – chopped liver flavour. "Don't bust your gut, hey?"

Soon the second can was empty. The cat began to purr. Reno bent over to pat its head.

White hot needles of pain scored the back of his hand.

Cursing, he jumped back. "What was that for?"

His hand was bleeding. The scratches were deep. He rinsed off the blood in the sink, applied potion and a Shin-Aid. The cat's eyes followed his every move.

"I save your fleabitten ass, and this is how you repay me?"

The cat turned around, lifted its tail, and let Reno have an eyeful of its puckered pink arsehole. The action seemed so deliberate, so almost-human, that Reno burst out laughing. With an air of grossly offended dignity, the cat stalked over to the bed, jumped up, curled nose to tail on Reno's pillow, and promptly fell asleep.

_ There are times_, thought Reno, _when I'm a mystery to myself. _ What on earth had possessed him to rescue this ingrate? Had he done it just because he could? A dying cat, a girl's big sad brown eyes, a moment of magic in the right place at the right time, on a night that stank of piss and blood and hot metal?

Cissnei's words resonated in his mind. Wasting life was a hateful thing to do. Who should know that better than the Turks? The Chief had taught them a hundred ways and more to part a man from his soul, both the cruel ways and the kind ways, and had taught them, too, that none were to be used casually or for pleasure. They were professionals. Which was not to say they couldn't enjoy their work. For Reno, the hunt was the thing, the chase, the speed, the pitting of his skills against an opponent who meant business. Reno liked winning. And he liked his enemies to know that he'd won. The jobs he liked the least were the ones when they never knew what hit them. The blow dart. The bullet in the nape of the neck. Was it really kinder? He sure as hell wouldn't want to go that way, without a fight. Without a sound.

The luminous digital clock on the bedside said half past two. Reno was due in the office at seven. That meant three and a half hours sleep. Not bad; he'd managed on less. Fortunately the bed was a presidential-size. Giving the cat a wide berth, Reno lay down on his back and gazed up at the ceiling. He did not want to think about his appointment with Commander Veld tomorrow morning, so instead he thought about what he should do with the cat. The best thing, the right thing, would be to give it as a gift to Cissnei. She'd be all _Oh Reno, my hero! You saved the little kitty! _and by the time she found out it was a fluffy psychokiller with switchblade claws it would be too late, he would have washed his hands of the thing and she'd be stuck with it. That would teach her to nearly let him get his head blown off while she mooned over some pathetic scrap of fur. He'd need to buy a leash first, though, or a cage, or something that would allow him to remove the cat from his apartment while keeping his skin in one intact. Mulling over these plans, Reno fell asleep.

When he woke up in the morning, the cat was gone.

.


	2. Some People Think Turks Are Glamorous

**CHAPTER TWO: SOME PEOPLE THINK TURKS ARE GLAMOROUS  
_[in which Tseng and Commander Veld discuss recruitment, we meet more Turks, and Veld demonstrates his management style]_ **

As he rode the tram to work that morning, Reno tried to figure out what could have happened to the cat. The only ways out of his apartment were through the front door (tripled locked and bolted), through the bathroom window (propped on the lever, but the gap wasn't wide enough for even a skinny cat to squeeze through), or off the balcony… and he had left the balcony door ajar last night. So – had it climbed onto the railing and fallen? That seemed the likeliest explanation. The only other possible route was over the rooftop, but the cat could not have jumped from the railing to the eaves; the distance was too great. So much, then, for his act of random kindness. The cat was probably a furry pancake by now. At least Cissnei would never have to know.

Rattling along, thinking these thoughts, Reno suddenly sensed he was being followed.

He was sitting, as he always did, in the corner at the rear of the tram, with his back to the wall. Casually, almost lazily, he ran his eyes over his fellow passengers. They were the usual crowd of working stiffs and schoolchildren: there wasn't one face he hadn't seen before. Yet someone was watching him. In that watchfulness Reno sensed neither hostility nor friendly interest - so it wasn't a pretty girl checking him out, unfortunately.

Whoever it was, they would show themselves when they were ready. Folding his arms, Reno leaned back against the upholstered seat and closed his eyes. He had something more immediate hanging over his head to worry about.

The Chief was not going to be happy about last night's performance.

On the 66th floor of the Shinra Electric Company Building, the light outside the window had turned from splenetic green to liverish yellow, sign that it was fully day. Veld and Tseng sat facing each other, a pile of manila folders spread across the polished table. A bottle of mineral water stood by Tseng's elbow. Veld nursed a shinrafoam cup of coffee between his large hands. One hand was boney and rough-skinned. Dark hairs sprouted on its reddened knuckles. The other hand, though it looked real at first glance, was made of titanium and silicon.

The two of them, Director and Lieutenant, were going through potential candidates for recruitment into the Turks.

Veld put down his coffee, reached for the next folder, flipped it open, and scanned rapidly down the page. His brown eyes narrowed under heavy brows. "What is this?" he demanded, holding the document up for Tseng to see.

"It appears to be a resume, sir. For an application."

"Since when have we been accepting _applications_? The suit finds the man it fits, that how it's always been done. Look at her specs, Tseng. Look at her family name. Recognise it?"

Tseng nodded. "Mideel gentry. Old money."

"They make Shinra look like a parvenu. Her hobby is big game hunting, for god's sake. And there was another one…." Veld's hand searched through the folders, found the one he was looking for. "The heir to the chief of Bone Village. Listen to what he says here. _I want to discover life on my own terms_. Does he imagine he can do this by joining the Turks? What world do they think they live in? What's wrong with them? Are they spoiled? Is that it? Have they exhausted every thrill money can buy?"

"In some quarters," Tseng observed mildly, "Turks are considered to be glamorous."

Veld stared hard at him for a moment. Then he chuckled: a deep, pleasant sound.

"Myths are useful," he said. "Which is more than I can say for these candidates. They're too old, for starters."

Something like the shadow of a cloud passed over Tseng's face. Veld, if he noticed it, gave no sign, but went on, "And they're not hungry enough. Don't waste my time with any more of these _applications, _Tseng_._"

"I will have Reno put them through the shredder immediately upon receipt, sir."

"Ah yes," said Veld, sitting back in his chair. "Reno. Has he come in yet?"

* * *

Outside the building and sixty-six floors down, a crowd of Shinra office workers was seething up the marble steps and through the narrow security doors into the lobby. They were many, and they were pressed together too close for comfort; each one of them was impatient to clock in and get to work. Yet even they, accustomed as they were to the sight of Turks on a daily basis, moved aside in subtle eddies, like sardines parting for a barracuda, to let Reno pass.

The thrill this gave him never grew stale.

He took the steps three at a time, twirling his nightstick. With him it was always either sprinting like a mad hare or sloping along with his hands in his pockets; as Rude had once pointed out, he could never just _walk_ like a normal person. The back of his head had registered the fact that the stalker from the tram was still tailing him, and still seemed to be posing no threat. On any other day, Reno might have wondered if it was Cissnei playing a trick on him, trying to freak him out. But she would be in no mood for jokes this morning.

The lobby and mezzanine were bustling with secretaries and IT guys and middle managers elbowing each other, with varying degrees of politeness, for a spot in one of the elevators. Reno, in no hurry to face the music, decided to slouch against the front desk for a while: he could chat up the new blonde receptionist while keeping one eye out for the stalker to reveal himself.

The receptionist stood up as he approached. "Hi, Reno."

She knew his name. Sure she did - they all did. He gave her his patented lazy-lidded smile, guaranteed to weaken knees at thirty paces.

"Oh my God," she squealed. "So cute!"

It was almost too easy.

But wait – now what was she doing? She had pushed back her chair and was hurrying around the reception desk towards him, hands stretched out, eyes wide, looking almost – scary -

"Oh!" She fell to her knees beside him. "So sweet!"

"Hey – hey – " He took a step back. "Isn't this kind of – "

"Look at him! He's so _little _and _cute_! Is he yours, Reno?"

Reno looked down.

The cat looked up.

So _this_ was his stalker.

They stared at each other – or it would be truer to say that Reno stared at the cat, and the cat looked right through him as if he were not there.

"Aw, little kitty," crooned the receptionist, "Do all the big trampling feet scare you, huh?"

The cat gave her a look of utter contempt. She sighed rapturously.

"It's funny," she said, sitting back on her heels, "I would never have pegged a Turk as the kind to keep a pet. You all come across so cool and 'talk to the hand' like. But why'd you bring him here? There's a strict no animal policy, didn't you know? Except for Dark Nation, of course. Look, we have a storage cupboard in the back, I could put him in there for you if you like. No one would know. I'd take good care of him, I promise."

"It's not my cat," said Reno. "It just followed me here."

"Oh." Her face fell. "Oh well, it must be a stray. Are you lost, little kitty? You look like a healthy kitty, you look like somebody takes good care of you. I bet they're looking for you right now. I'd better put you back outside – "

"Don't touch it!" cried Reno.

But the cat was already in her arms, snuggled up against her neck. Reno could hear its engines revving. Against the thin fabric of her blouse its paws kneaded in rhythm with its purr as she stroked its back, and it gazed over her shoulder at Reno with suddenly sleepy green eyes.

"Let's go, kitty," said the receptionist.

Reno now abandoned any lingering notion he might have had of giving the cat to Cissnei. Clearly the animal was not something that could be given, or commanded, or owned. He had done his bit by saving its life; let it look after its own neck from now on. He watched the receptionist put the cat down on the ground outside, come back in, and shut the door; through the tinted glass he saw the cat walk away without a backward glance. Then he made his way through the thinning crowds to the elevator, and rode up to the 48th floor.

* * *

"Something's wrong," said Veld to Tseng. "What is it?"

Across the table Tseng meet and held the brown depths of the older man's gaze. "Nothing, sir," he lied.

Veld wasn't fooled. "Don't give me that. I can read you like a book. Come on, my boy, spit it out."

Tseng hesitated.

He trusted his Commander more than anyone – far more than he trusted himself. And Veld, in return, trusted him. An essential element of that trust was Veld's expectation that Tseng would speak his mind honestly when called upon to do so. But the mental reservation niggling away at him now seemed hardly worth mentioning. He was never happy being openly at odds with the Commander.

In his uncertainty he hesitated too long, and Veld's patience (always short, always tautly-wound) snapped. "Just tell me what you're thinking, dammit," he ordered.

"It's - it's the candidates, sir." Tseng gestured at the three folders that remained in front of them, the ones selected.

"You have a problem with them?"

"They are…. young, sir."

"Too young, you think?"

"That's not for me to say."

"But you think it," said Veld. The dark scar that seamed his left cheek from the bridge of his nose to the corner of his mouth was twitching a little – with anger? Or amusement? Even Tseng, who was closer to the Commander than anyone, had trouble reading the older man's face sometimes.

Veld said, "You're think they're too young for this line of work, don't you? You think they're just children."

"If you insist," Tseng replied, "Then, yes, they _are_ children."

"And how old were you?"  
"That's different – " said Tseng without thinking, and immediately wished he hadn't.

"Why different?" Veld's eyes glinted. "Do you think you're somehow unique?"

Tseng looked down at his hands, folded pale against the dark blue of his trousers, and held his tongue.

With a rough gesture Veld sent the three remaining manila folders skidding across the table into Tseng's lap. "Read Natalya's summaries," he ordered. "Out loud."

Tseng opened the first folder." 'Male, sixteen. Place of birth: Madouge Corner. Parents untraceable. Current address: Mythril Jail, held on a charge of manslaughter. Weapon skills: martial arts, explosives. Notes: accused in the death of his employer, a mining-gang operator, to whom he owed debt-bondage-"

"Next one," said Veld.

" 'Male, sixteen. Place of birth: Midgar Sector 5 slums. No known relatives. Current address: Wall Market. Weapon skills: sawn-off shotgun. Notes: has been in Don Corneo's employment as an enforcer for the last three years –' "

"Next," said Veld.

" 'Female, fifteen. Place of birth: Corel. Father killed in mine collapse ten years ago. Mother and siblings died in bombing raid during Wutai War. Current address: Corel. Weapon skills: knives. Notes: performs novelty knife-throwing act. Occasional prostitute, question mark' –"

"Technically speaking," said Veld, "You're right, of course. If we go by the count of years, they are children. And yes: the fact that they are children works to our advantage. Children are fast learners. Their morality is still fluid. Children obey even when they don't see the point of an order. A child's loyalty is like a steel cable, and children need to feel they belong to something – a gang, a family, call it what you like. But if you think those three children are better off where they are now, just say the word, and their folders can go into the recycling bin."

He stood, holding out his hand.

Tseng said nothing – as Veld had known he would, for there was nothing to say. After a moment, he closed the folders and passed them to Veld, who put them into his briefcase.

"Those kids left the playground long ago, and we can't put them back," Veld said as he snapped the case shut. "Don't get sentimental, Tseng. You have that weakness in you; I've noticed it before. But you can't be their rock unless you're hard."

* * *

The first person Reno saw when he walked onto their floor was Cissnei. She was alone in the lounge area, standing with her back to him, staring out of the panoramic window. Off to one side, the wide-screen plasma TV was showing the breakfast news with the sound muted.

Reno lit a cigarette. "Yo, Ciss."

She didn't turn around. "You_ had_ to be late this morning. I've already filed my report."

"Keen, aren't we?" he retorted, but his heart wasn't in it.

Stock footage of the Sector Seven slums filled the TV screen. The scrolling subtitles read: _Dangerous group of Wutai rebels pacified by Shinra. Security reports no further threat to residents. _Reno found the remote and turned up the sound. The scene cut to the outside of the Sector One dispensary. A thin, pale woman with her arm in a sling was talking to a reporter off camera. Reno recognized her at once. "The rebel just came out of nowhere and shot me for no reason," she was saying. "If that young man and woman from Shinra hadn't been there, I would have been killed for sure. They're heroes, risking their lives to keep – "

"Turn it off," said Cissnei.

He did, remarking, "Why do we even have to write reports when he knows everything already?"

"Can't you just go and get it over with?" she exclaimed. "I've had no fucking sleep and I've been here since four, just waiting. The waiting's the worst. And you're acting like – like –"

"I was followed to work today," he told her.

"What?"

"By a cat."

"What?"

"It wasn't dead. When I went back, it was still alive, so I healed it – "

"What? How?"

He took her arm. "Come talk to me while I file my report, and I'll tell you."

They went through the pneumatic plexiglass door to the inner office. Chrome shelving units lined tobacco-coloured walls, and each piece of furniture was arranged so that nobody sat with his back to the door or the window. The floor, a padded speckled linoleum, absorbed footfalls. Rude was at his desk, fiddling with a digital camera no bigger than an eyeball. He looked up and grunted hello.

Three of their colleagues were out today. Natalya, who at thirty-six was the oldest of the Turks, had been away on a scouting mission for the last two weeks; bespectacled Knox, the number three man, was in Junon, while Mozo, whose battered boxer's face belied his sharp detective's mind, had left at dawn for the Grasslands with a second class SOLDIER named Zack Fair to promote Lazard's recruitment drive. That left twenty-five year old Rosalind, expert in all things ballistic, who right now was sitting at a computer terminal, her back ramrod straight, her feet neatly together on the floor. The bob of her blonde hair had been cut with razor precision. Reno slid into the seat next to her. Without moving her eyes from the screen, she said, "Did you sleep in those clothes?"

"And a very good morning to you too, Roz."

"They smell. And there's a bullet hole in your sleeve. For heaven's sake."

He laughed, and began to type rapidly with three fingers, talking to Cissnei all the while. His completed report was a series of bullet points, riddled with spelling mistakes and lacking any punctuation.

He pressed send. "Done."

A tense silence fell.

All four knew what was coming. Rosalind and Rude had been in Reno and Cissnei's shoes before now, though it was probably true that nobody had stood in those shoes as often as Reno. They all understood the necessity of punishment. It was part of who they were; of what they did.

It wouldn't be long. The Chief must have read Cissnei's report by now.

In the silence, a faint scratching sound could be heard.

"There's something outside," said Rude,

They turned their heads to see a small dark shape sitting on the windowsill, tapping at the glass.

"Is it a bird?" said Rosalind.

"Holy shit!" cried Cissnei. "It's a cat! Quick, get it in before it falls." She ran to the window, followed by Rosalind; the two of them pushed hard but the frame refused to budge. Cissnei swore. "When was the last time we opened this thing?"

"We've never opened it," said Rosalind. "It's against company rules."

"You need to unlock it," said Rude, pushing back his chair and coming over. With his thumb he flicked the catch. The window flew up, the two female Turks tumbled backwards, and the little ginger cat jumped down into the room.

Cissnei rolled over onto her elbow. "Look! Reno! It's your cat!"

"Is this _your_ cat, Reno?" demanded Rosalind.

"No! It's just a crazy stalker!"

"How the fuck did it get up here? Forty-eight floors," Cissnei marveled. "How is that even possible? It must really love you, Reno."

"Or really hate me and really want to shred me."

"It is kind of cute, though," said Rosalind. "Hey – Rude, are you all right? You've gone pale."

His sunglasses fixed on the cat, Rude was backing slowly away.

"Don't you like cats?" asked Cissnei

"I – have an allergy."

"You're not allergic to anything," said Reno. "I've read your medical report. Hey – you're not…. scared of it, are you, big guy?"

"Not scared. I – just don't like it."

"But it really likes you," said Cissnei.

Tail up, ears pricked, purring loudly, the cat was making a beeline for Rude.

"Cats always do this to me," said Rude, and there was something almost like feeling, like a groan, in his voice.

"Good," said Reno, "Maybe now it'll leave me alone and persecute Rude instead."

"Why did you help us open the window, then?" Rosalind asked Rude.

"Couldn't let it fall. Just keep it away from me."

"You big softie," Cissnei smiled, bending over to pick the cat up.

"Careful!" cried Reno.

"Yow, shit!" Cissnei dropped the cat and wrapped her hand round her slashed wrist.

The office doors hissed open. Tseng came in, and stopped. He took in the scene: Rude backed against the wall; Cissnei scowling in pain; Rosalind cross-legged on the floor, her hair messed and her tie askew; the opened window, the cat, and Reno…. Well, Reno looked no worse than he ever did.

Tseng said, "What's that cat doing in here?"

For a long moment, nobody spoke.

Then Reno, too mouthy sometimes for his own good, said, "It's our new recruit, boss."

"Shut up, Reno. Rosalind, what's been happening here?"

Rosalind had risen to her feet, was smoothing her jacket and straightening her tie. "Sir, the cat was at the window. We were afraid it would fall, so we let it in."

"The open window is a security breach. Rude, close it. Rosalind, do something about that cat. Reno and Cissnei, come with me. Commander Veld is ready for you now."

* * *

The Commander administered his punishments in the Turks' secret chamber. This was a large, windowless surveillance room, with a smaller 'cooler' room attached, located on the floor between floors. No elevator stopped there. It appeared on none of the plans for the Shinra building. It had no number, and none of its doors could be accessed from the endless stairs. Outside the department, only two people knew that it existed and how to find it: Reeve Tuesti, who had designed it, and President Shinra.

While Veld dealt with Reno, Tseng and Cissnei waited outside in the corridor. Neither of them spoke. Tseng studied a spot on the wall about a metre to the left of her shoulder. Cissnei kept her eyes fixed on her shoes. When he thought she wasn't looking, he stole quick glances at her. She was biting the inside of her cheek. The walls were soundproofed, but both knew from experience what was happening to Reno in there. Her turn was next.

A beating normally took between fifteen minutes and half an hour, depending on the seriousness of the offence. The offender was required to remove his or her suit jacket, but otherwise remained fully clothed; the objective, as Veld had explained to Tseng, was not to humiliate them, but to _teach_ them. Veld never lost his temper when he was engaged in corporal punishment. He used his belt, as a father might who disciplined his children for their own good, and he took his time, working the sinner over with care, striking him, or her, on the shoulders, the back, the thighs and the buttocks, but never the face; never where outsiders might see the welts, and, seeing them, leap to conclusions.

Outsiders would not understand, nor did the Turks desire their understanding. Among the initiated, no explanation was necessary.

Only rookies, Tseng reflected, really cared about the pain. Fear of pain was the first stage, the hump they had to get over. Pain was a constant. You learned to live with it – the expectation of it, the reality of it, the memory of it. To be any good at this job, you very quickly had to get to the point where the prospect of pain – your own, or someone else's – didn't make you flinch, didn't cause you to hesitate that split second too long that made the difference between life and death. Outsiders accused the Turks of being indifferent to suffering. The Turks understood that their objectivity was something to be proud of.

Tseng glanced again at Cissnei, only to find that she was looking at him. Their eyes met. Hers, golden brown with flecks of copper, widened slightly; she gave a wry little smile, a twitch of her left shoulder, as if to say _Hey, Boss, whaddyaknow – back a week and already I'm in the shit. _Tseng felt a smile touch his own lips in response.

None of the others could have got that smile out of him, and he didn't even mind admitting it. Although he had realized very early on in his career that it would be a mistake to get too attached to any of his colleagues, he couldn't help feeling glad that Veld had called Cissnei home. Her femininity brought warmth into the office. She had a knack for managing Reno that made Tseng's own job easier. And she was beautiful, of course. Those big eyes could light up a room.

She hadn't been anything much to look at when the Commander had first recruited her – more of an eyesore, really: a skinny, scrappy ten-year-old with her head shaved against lice, wearing a patched school tunic too short to cover the scabs on her knees. To Tseng's eye, at the time, there had been nothing special about her, nothing that made her stand out from the orphanage's other three hundred fierce, hungry kids, any one of whom would have killed for the chance of that scholarship to the military academy. But Veld had recognised her promise straight away. The Commander had a nose for a Turk. He could sniff out raw potential in the unlikeliest candidates – just like the trainers at the chocobos auctions, who ran their eyes once over a flock of wild birds and knew immediately which ones would be champions.

Veld only ever backed winners. Thus, by choosing them, he had defined them.

The door to the surveillance room hissed open. Cissnei immediately pulled in her chin and stood up straight. The Commander appeared in the doorway. His forehead was glistening. Sweat darkened the armpits of his shirt. By the looks of things, he'd given Reno quite some going over. And maybe, Tseng realized, Reno hadn't been entirely selfish in insisting on going first, "to get it the fuck over with", as he'd claimed. Veld's arm must be growing a little tired by now.

"Go in," said Veld to Cissnei, standing back to let her pass through the doorway. He turned to speak to Tseng. "Board meeting's at eleven. I'll need to shower and change first. Meet me in my office at ten-fifty. We'll go together."

"Understood," said his lieutenant.

* * *

_Author's Note_

_This is the place for me to acknowledge my huge debts: to the Inimitable DA, whose labour-of-love translation of the Before Crisis scripts at gunshotromance on freewebs has been my main source for this fic; to kain454 on youtube for his incredibly useful videos of BC gameplay, and to SandG (Mo) for his awesome chapter summaries of the game at . Since I don't speak Japanese and don't live in Japan, my fic would have been impossible without their work. Thank you SO MUCH._

_A note on the BC Turks  
As you may know, the BC Turks are known by the names of their favourite weapons;you, the player, can then name them whatever you like. [That's why Cissnei tells Zack that Cissnei is not her 'real name' - all the Japanese players of Crisis Core would have given her their own names in BC]. DA's names have become almost canon. For some of the BC Turks, I have kept her names; for others, I have substituted my own choices. The three BC Turks mentioned in this chapter are_

_Rosalind (Pistols, female) - DA's Rosalind, and Elena's older sister  
Mozo (Fist Fighter, male) - DA's Durman  
Knox (Katana, male) - DA's Adrian  
[Natalya, the Number 3 Turk mentioned in the chapter, is an OC. We won't be seeing much of her.] _

_In BC, all the 'new' Turks are recruited at or after the beginning of the game. In this story, some of them have been working for Shinra for many years. Knox, Mozo and Rosalind are all senior to Rude, Reno, and Cissnei. It was just easier that way._


	3. The Arrow Has Left the Bow of the Goddes

**CHAPTER 3: THE ARROW HAS LEFT THE BOW OF THE GODDESS  
_In which we hear Tseng's thoughts on the Board of Directors, Rufus makes his first appearance, and Reno reminisces about his teenage years._**

**_

* * *

_**

Commander Veld was running late. By the time he and Tseng arrived at the meeting, the rest of the Directors, six men and one woman, had already taken their seats and were silently reading the documents being displayed on the table monitors. Everyone looked up when the two Turks came in. "Ah," Scarlet murmured. "Our favourite gangster and his pet guardhound. I feel safer already."

"Perhaps we could get started now," said Hojo.

Tseng made no sound as he followed Veld across the room. The expensive deep pile broadloom, red as ripe tomatoes, that carpeted the floor from wall to wall, absorbed his footsteps. He took up his customary position behind Veld's chair, and soon everyone forgot he was there – everyone, that is, except the President, who, after all, signed Tseng's paychecks, and Lazard, who sometimes turned a smile his way, or posed a question designed to draw him into the conversation (which was something Veld had forbidden. Tseng was there to make mental notes, not to participate).

Lazard Deusericus was one of the few points on which Tseng and his Commander found themselves unable to agree. Veld had an almost visceral antipathy for the young Director of SOLDIER; he considered him incompetent, declared that he dressed like a pansy, and did not trust him. Tseng did not trust Lazard either, on principle, but that was business, nothing personal. He believed the man had more backbone than Veld was giving him credit for. Lazard's apparently genuine friendliness made him difficult to dislike. More crucially, he was the Department's sole reliable ally on the Board.

But was friendship all that Lazard was after? If so – if he truly believed it was possible for someone in his position to befriend a Turk – then he did not yet perfectly understand the way his father's world operated. Or did he have some deeper and more sinister motive behind his overtures of friendship? Was he plotting to overturn the world his father had made? And was he on the lookout for fellow travellers? Veld suspected as much. The bizarre emails Lazard occasionally circulated through the company network fuelled these doubts, reinforcing the Commander's conviction that this illegitimate son of the President had inherited neither his father's intelligence nor his common sense.

Next to Lazard sat Palmer, a man whose purpose on the board continued to elude Tseng. His post was a sinecure; the Old Man was the one who really ran the space program, in close association with Scarlet, whose weaponry workshops made the mako-powered rocket jets. Still, Tseng supposed that every court must have its jester, and Palmer was the fool who made Old Shinra look like a king.

The woman sitting on Palmer's left was a different proposition altogether. After Reeve, Scarlet was probably the most intelligent person on the Board – and unlike Reeve she was a highly focused, goals-oriented, ruthlessly efficient thinker with no time for sentiment. As the Commander had once phrased it, she had balls of tungsten carbide. Though Tseng personally found her repellent, he would not underestimate her, nor make the mistake of inferring too much from the low cut dresses and red stiletto shoes she favoured. Scarlett's appearance was entirely strategic. She was the least flirtatious, least manipulative, most direct woman he had ever met - and the coldest. Get on the wrong side of her, and she would make a formidable enemy.

The same could not be said of the man who sat next to Scarlet. Heidegger, Director of Public Safety Maintenance, was wearing his green Field Marshall's greatcoat. The shape of his head always put Tseng in mind of a battering-ram. Vanity had made Heidegger stupid; resentment made him aggressive, but with his fondness for parades and square-bashing, his taste for prepubescent girls, and his hatred of Veld, Lazard, or anyone else perceived as a threat to his position, Heidegger was so predictable that he was the least dangerous of them all.

Of Professor Hojo, the less said the better. He was, regrettably, untouchable.

Next to Hojo sat Midgar's visionary architect, Reeve Tuesti. Outwardly he seemed, at first glance, to resemble a younger, finer-featured Veld, with his tawny skin and thick, soft brown hair brushed back from a wide forehead. But Reeve's focus was permanently distracted. When he wasn't busy building castles in the air, he passed the time playing with toy robots, and sometimes tumbled absent-mindedly into bed with one of his star-struck interns.

Tseng thought Reeve suffered from a moral defect that made it impossible for him to think of himself as anything other than a good person. Veld thought Reeve was willfully blind. As long as he was living his dream, it didn't matter either way, but if anything were to burst Reeve's bubble, self-interest alone would probably not be enough to keep him loyal.

Next to Reeve sat President Shinra, dressed in a velvet suit the same colour as this carpet on which Tseng was standing. His manicured fingers toyed with a fat cigar. His small eyes were bright blue. His remaining hair was yellow. He was a very happy man. He said so himself, all the time, at press conferences and at company rallies and in board meetings like this one, and it seemed to be true, but in any case Tseng was not paid to have opinions about the President. To Shinra's left sat Veld, and so back to Lazard; Tseng's survey of the boardroom was complete.

Meanwhile the meeting had, as usual, degenerated into an argument about money. Veld was trying to put his case for a twelve percent increase in the Turks' budget, and Heidegger kept shouting him down. Raising the budget for Administrative Research would mean cuts in programs elsewhere. The alternative would be to raise the tariffs again, but both Reeve and the President opposed this, arguing that the public's faith in the company was their biggest asset, bigger even than Sephiroth.

Scarlett's fiefdom was safe from cutbacks; the peace with Wutai was too new and too fragile to permit economies in weapons development. All the same, she opposed Veld's request on principle. The last thing the Shinra Corporation needed, she asserted, was any _more _Turks. Administrative Research was already too big for its boots, having grown so far beyond its original remit of providing support for the Science and Urban Development Departments that it was now encroaching on territory that belonged by rights to Public Safety.

"Damned right," Heidegger snorted. "It's not like they do anything my army couldn't do. What we need is a return to the good old days. When the Turks were just one man and his dog."

"From the looks of things," said Scarlet, who had remembered Tseng's presence and was glaring at him, "They still are."

Lazard of course was making positive noises in Veld's direction. More funding for the Turks would mean more resources for SOLDIER, a program whose future had not been entirely certain since the defection of Genesis and Angeal the year before. And that would make Hojo happy, because Administrative Research fed his monster factory and SOLDIER took the products, and so a growth in either department, or both, inevitably allowed Science to expand.

Veld's PHS rang.

"Take it outside," said the President.

* * *

Veld took Tseng with him. There was nothing left to hear that had not been said and heard before. The President would come to a decision in his own good time; he might well have made up his mind already. Tseng often wondered what the real function of the board meetings was. Entertainment? Nostalgia? He closed the double doors on their bickering, and turned around to see young Rufus Shinra, white and gold, fifteen years old, sitting on a blue velvet banquette in the hallway, apparently absorbed in a game on his PHS.

"Natalya?" said Veld into his phone. "You're breaking up."

Next to Rufus lay his companion and guardian, the cat-like cuahl Dark Nation. An ugly animal, Tseng had always thought: angular, hairless, with dappled bluish-black skin and a fleshy scarlet crest resembling a second tail sprouting from the back of its head. Claws that could rip a man's throat out; teeth that could pierce steel. Not the kind of pet a father would normally give his child.

"Speak up," Veld barked into the phone. Gesturing for Tseng to stay with Rufus, he went further down the hall, his phone pressed to his ear.

"He doesn't want me to overhear his conversation," said Rufus. His eyes remained fixed on the PHS screen, thumbs clicking rapidly. "You're supposed to distract me."

Ordinarily, Tseng would have been willing to make time for Rufus. Arrogant and aggravating as he could be, the boy was also bright and observant: conversations with him were often interesting, and occasionally informative. But Veld's lieutenant couldn't take his eyes off his Commander, who was now down at the end of the hallway. The tension in Veld's posture made Tseng feel uneasy. He couldn't make out Veld's words, but the tone of his voice was plain to hear: it sounded, from this distance, angry.

Rufus said, "He'll get his money, don't worry."

"You shouldn't eavesdrop," Tseng rebuked him.

The boy put down his game and turned his head to give the Turk a look, cynical and coldly amused, that would have made his Old Man proud. "You're a fine one to talk," he retorted.

Unlike his older half-brother, this boy never made the slightest attempt to ingratiate himself with his father's senior managers. He spoke to the board members as if they, not he, were the children. He was rude to Scarlett, gave Heidegger orders, snubbed Palmer, sneered at Hojo… He did, however, treat Reeve with a certain amount of deference, and spoke respectfully to the Commander – to his face, at least.

Rufus said, "You know, Tseng, don't you, that my father intends to announce my appointment as Vice-President some time in the next couple of weeks?"

Tseng nodded. The Commander had told him this in confidence the day before.

"Yes, you always know," Rufus smiled. "That's why I like talking to you. I don't have to watch what I say. Of course, you understand that my old man has an ulterior motive. Morale in SOLDIER has been weakened by the loss of Genesis and Angeal. Sephiroth only takes orders when it suits him. Lazard is looking a little incompetent right now. My presence on the board will encourage him to try harder. Don't you agree?"

Rufus' voice was on the point of breaking: once or twice as he spoke it squealed like a rusty hinge, and Tseng had to work to repress a smile. He glanced down the hallway. Veld was standing with his back to them, phone clamped to one ear, finger in the other, shoulders hunched. From the looks of things, Natalya was having some kind of trouble.

"Tseng?" prompted Rufus.

"That's a reasonable interpretation," Tseng replied. " But don't get your hopes up too high. Being Vice-President is a ceremonial post. I'm not even sure you'll have an office."

"An office means nothing. Palmer has an office. Mayor Domino has a whole floor. The important thing is that everyone recognizes what being Vice-President means. I'm the designated heir. My bastard brother may not find it easy to accept that."

Rufus paused. Tseng offered no comment.

"However," Rufus went on, "If he's truly loyal to this company, he'll swallow his pride and accept me as a player in the game. On the other hand, if he's not as loyal as he pretends to be, my appointment may push him over the edge. Personally, I doubt SOLDIER would follow him if it came to a direct conflict with my father. It would all depend which way Sephiroth jumped. But whatever happens, we need the Turks up to full strength right now. So your Commander will get his money and his recruitment drive."

The boy paused, waiting for some reaction from his audience. Tseng was prepared to be generous. "I'm impressed by your command of company politics," he said.

Rufus cocked an eyebrow. "You're easily impressed, then. I think the whole thing's blindingly obvious."

"You look just like your father when you do that," Tseng replied.

Rufus' face fell: he tried, but failed, to conceal his irritation, and his failure irritated him further. Turning away, he picked up the PHS and carried on with his game, no longer the precocious prince, but an ordinary sullen teenager.

As happened so often when he dealt with Rufus, Tseng was left wondering what was really going on inside that blond head. The boy obviously grasped the rationale behind his appointment, and seemed to feel no resentment at being used as a pawn in his father's boardroom games. But Tseng doubted Rufus had been given a choice. What fifteen-year-old in his right mind would voluntarily spend his days sitting in a stuffy office listening to a bunch of paunchy middle-aged executives squabbling over budgets and corporate strategy?

The thing about Rufus, though, was that while he was happy to tell you what he _thought_ - or what he wanted you to believe he thought – he never spoke about what he _felt_.

What did Rufus care about? What made his heart beat faster? What _did_ he want? That was what Tseng did not know. But then again, what was left to want when you had everything money could buy, and the prospect of limitless future power? Rufus' life was the envy of millions: tennis parties, tea parties, dance parties, hunting parties, birthday parties at Costa del Sol and Icicle Inn… A hectic round of closely guarded, carefully vetted _fun_. Down in the filing room on the 47th floor the Turks kept one whole wall full of reports on where Rufus went, what he did, what he ate, whom he talked to, whom he danced with, and why he laughed or frowned. He could not stir a step outside the building without a bodyguard at his side. For a while Reno had been the chief babysitter, albeit under protest - the stiffly decorous parties Rufus attended were not the kind of parties Reno enjoyed – but he'd been pulled off that assignment about four months ago, after the memorable afternoon when, entirely on his own initiative and without asking permission, he'd taken the boy down to the Wall Market and tried to buy him a whore.

(_"But the poor little buttoned-up shit. I felt sorry for him, Boss."_)

Tseng had answered Rufus' call that day, the self-possessed childish voice on the other end of the line demanding, firstly, that a helicopter be sent at once to collect him, and, secondly, that the presumptuous red-headed pimp never be allowed anywhere near him ever again.

("_What's with that kid anyway? I really thought I was doing him a favour. Most boys his age would jump at the chance."_)

These days, Rufus' bodyguard was usually Natalya or Rosalind.

Tseng's reflections were shattered by the sound of the Commander's voice. Veld was shouting into the phone, "Natalya? Natalya?" unaware, or not caring, that Tseng and Rufus could both hear him. "Nats! What's happening? What's that sound? Nats? Are you there? Answer me!"

Fear gripped Tseng's throat.

"It doesn't sound too good for your colleague, does it?" said Rufus.

Tseng turned to look at him. The boy had schooled his features into a pretense of concern. His eyes, however, were shining.

* * *

Reno woke with a start. _Shit!_ He'd nodded off at the controls of the helicopter. The Chief would_ kill_ him. With his free hand he pushed at his goggles, and then realized, as he came fully awake, that he was not strapped in the pilot's seat but crouched in the darkness of the punishment cell – and _fuck_, he _hurt._

Served him right, though. He'd been sloppy. Careless. He was lucky not to be dead. And like the Chief always said, it wasn't enough for your head to know where you went wrong. Your whole body had to learn the lesson: every nerve ending, every muscle fibre. That way, you didn't make the same mistake twice. Your reflexes wouldn't let you. The Chief liked to say, _the first time you screw up, it's your fault. The second time, it's mine._

Turks did not make mistakes. That was the Chief's first lesson. SOLDIERs were mutants with mako in their veins and they could afford to screw up because it was practically impossible to kill them. Heidegger's grunts were like ants; if one or two snuffed it there were plenty more milling around to plug the gap. Turks were few in number and they were human, relying on their wits, their discipline and each other to get the job done. Each one of them, as the Chief liked to point out, represented a precious investment of time and money and years of training.

When the Chief said _Don't get wasted _he meant it both ways.

Reno could just imagine the email:

_To: All Staff_

_ From: HR_

_ Subject: Squandering Company Assets_

_ It has come to the attention of the Human Resources department that some employees have been careless with [__company property- deleted]__ their lives, in direct contravention of the Company Handbook's Health and Safety Policy Directive on Risk Management, blah de blah de blah. The Shinra Corporation would like to take this opportunity to remind all employees that the Company [__owns them- deleted]__ cares for their welfare…._

Not that Reno had ever read the Company Handbook. But he quite liked the fact that there was such a thing. He didn't like filling out requisition forms, or expense claims, or evaluation sheets; he didn't like having his inbox spammed with complaints about stolen coffee cups, or roundrobins sharing inspirational clichés; he got restless in meetings that went on for more than five minutes; he loathed having to file anything, let alone alphabetically. But he liked the orderliness and purpose that forms and meetings and folders and deadlines invoked. He liked having a stationery cupboard, and not only so that he could steal from it. He liked the busyness of business. He liked being part of something big.

Commander Veld was the first person who'd ever hit him as if it mattered – as if he expected Reno to learn something. To _improve_. Growing up under the plate, kids got swatted all the time whether they deserved it or not, and Reno had learnt early on to roll with the punches. Nature had formed him for a thief, light-fingered, nimble, and stealthy; he could have picked pockets for a living, but had preferred to raid the plate for electronics he could fence in Sector Five. It was more challenging, more of a thrill. In the end he'd got cornered dismantling the security cameras around Reactor Three; he'd already taken most of the cameras from Reactor Five and pretty much stripped the train station, too, and so (he should have seen it coming: trouble had been closing in on him all day, and he was fast running out of bolt-holes) they sent this big tall skinhead in sunglasses after him (go Rude!), who looked intimidating but turned out to be just a punk not much older than Reno. Rude didn't even try to chase him; it was like he already knew it would be no contest. He just dropped a Stun on him (cheater) and hauled his unconscious fifteen year old arse all the way up to the floor between floors, and when Reno came to his senses there was the Chief sitting across from him – only Reno hadn't known his name then or even who he was – and there was Tseng, and Natalya, and Reno had never seen them before either, though he recognized their notorious dark blue suits. On the table in front of them was a security camera in pieces, right down to the last coil and pin.

"Make it work," said the beat-up old guy with the scar down his cheek.

_This day is getting progressively weirder,_ thought Reno, _but at least I'm not dead yet._

He put the camera back together. It worked.

"You're quick," said the old guy.

Then he took off his belt and beat the crap out of Reno.

"That was for getting caught," he said.

Later he took Reno up in the helicopter. They went above the clouds and Reno saw for the first time that the sky was blue. When they came back down to earth, the old guy told him, "We've had our eye on you for a while. You've got talents we could use. Basically, the job is security. We're the President's bodyguard. We also take care of VIPs, monitor the activities of groups and individuals hostile to Shinra, protect company secrets, and oversee the transfer of data. Covert ops and corporate spying, to be blunt."

"Cool," said Reno, who had understood the words _bodyguard_ and _spying _and practically nothing else.

"Sometimes we have to kill people," the geezer added.

So _that_ was what this was all about. _Shit. Think fast, Reno. _"Hey, it was self-defense," he protested. "Both times."

The old guy smiled. Not exactly a pretty sight. "I know what it was. And you made a good job of it. For an amateur. It's taken his friends a while to work out who did it. We were impressed. So, tell me – did you enjoy it?"

Reno stiffened. "I'm not some psycho whackjob, if that's what you think. I told you, it was him or me – "

"The first time. The second time, you were paying off a debt, weren't you?"

How the _hell_ did this guy know all this stuff? There was obviously no point in lying (_damn) _so Reno came clean, "Yeah, that's right. Like I said, him or me. I did what I had to do. I'm just trying to get along, man, same as everyone else. What's it got to do with you, anyway? He didn't work for Shinra…" Reno tailed off as a sickening thought hit him. "Did he?"

The old guy shook his head. "He wasn't Shinra material. There's no room in this company for idiots who go looking for trouble. That's why I'm offering _you_ the job. You're the one who's still alive. Pretty impressive, considering who's after you. So. What do you say?"

"Can I say No?"

Reno was being sarcastic, but the chief-guy gave him a straight answer. "Right now you can. If you're not interested, I'll drop you back down where we found you and you'll never heard from us again, as long as you keep your mouth shut about this interview. But before you decide, I want you to be very clear about one thing. Once you join us, there's no going back. We are the guardians of this company's secrets, and we know _why_ they have to stay secret. That's our priority. Your own life – _my_ life – is of secondary importance. Shinra expects absolute loyalty. In return, you'll be looked after for as long as you live. You'll want for nothing. You'll have total job security. You can never be fired. But you can never quit, either. If you turn out to be incompetent or untrustworthy, I'll shoot you myself."

Reno thought the Chief's words over. The offer sounded fair. He liked things black and white anyway. No bullshit. It kept life simple. And considering what was waiting for him back under the plate, he really had no other options left.

But he didn't want this old guy to think he was easy, or anything, so he stalled a little longer, asking, "What's the pay like?"

"Better than SOLDIER."

'Brains beats brawn, huh? Do I get to fly helicopters?"

"I think you'd be a natural. Oh, and one more thing. You like the girls, don't you?"

Fuck, they really _had_ been watching him. Perverts. Reno wasn't sure where the old guy was going with this one, so he decided to hedge his bets. "I like a lot of things," he answered.

"Well, that's fine. Your private life is your own business, as long as it doesn't compromise corporate security. But I want you to understand that I don't allow office romances. This work can get very dangerous, and we depend on each other too much to allow emotions to cloud our judgment. You need to get that straight right from the start."

"Hey, man, you can't shoot me for being a chick magnet."

The Chief's smile twitched again. "Nor would I. A twelve month posting on Goblin Island usually cures even the most hot-blooded romantic."

"OK. Hands off the lady Turks, I get it. No problem. I mean, no offense, Chief, but that suit isn't exactly a turn-on. Speaking of which – do I _have _to wear it?"

The Chief laughed out loud at this. When he laughed, his face became that of someone completely different, as if the he'd suddenly turned into his own nicer, younger twin. The sight threw Reno off-balance, somehow. He'd been thinking he'd got the old guy sussed: that this was a man he needed to be afraid of, a hard man, and that that was good, because the Turks couldn't do what they did unless they felt a healthy fear for the Chief who gave them their orders. Reno's own father had been the same… at least, Reno felt pretty sure he remembered his dad had been a man like that (loud voice, heavy fists) though the memories were getting blurrier as the years went on.

But the sudden softening of Commander Veld's expression, the warmth in his laugh, suggested there was more to him than met the eye, and this hint that the Chief might be in some sense _putting on an act_ had been unnerving to Reno. People with hidden depths made him wary.

Six years ago, that had been.

The cell door opened, and his little cubicle filled with light – soft, artificial light, bright enough to make him blink. He couldn't tell who was standing in the doorway.

"Let's go," said Tseng, holding out a hand.

They were alone. Cissnei had already been released and sent wherever: home, a mission, the cafeteria. Reno's first thought was that he wished he could have seen her. His second was the realization he was starving.

"How do you feel?" asked Tseng.

"Hungry. Et cetera. You know."

Tseng took from his top pocket a small green pill, a more portable form of Cure materia recently developed by the science department, and held it out to Reno.

Reno stared at it. "What's that for?"

They didn't usually get offered the Cure after a punishment. The rule was: _you brought it on yourself, so grin and bear it_.

"The Commander needs you to fly him to Costa. It's urgent. Take the Cure. Then I'll explain."

The familiar pins-and-needles sensation began at the tips of Reno's fingers and toes, gathered strength, rushed stinging up his limbs like iodine under his skin, hit his heart the way he imagined a bullet would feel, and then swiftly dissipated in a warm glow. As his bruises healed, his memories of the punishment cell and the recent beating blurred and retreated into some distant past as if through an infinite line of mirrors, though whether this was a side-effect of the materia or a trick of his own mind, Reno did not know. It was something the Turks did not talk about.

"Up to flying?" said Tseng.

"You need to ask?"

"Then let's go." Tseng set off at a fast pace; Reno stretched his legs to catch up, asking, "You're coming too, Boss?"

"Not with you, no."

Something in the texture of Tseng's voice made Reno glance sideways to take a good look at his face.

"What's wrong?" he demanded.

"There's been a new development. Possibly a threat to the company. We don't know who they are yet or what they want. The Commander wants you to take him to Costa so he can talk to the Legend. Charlie usually hears everything that's going on."

"Yeah, and if we're lucky he'll feel like sharing. So where are you going?"

"Icicle Inn."

They had reached the elevator. Tseng pressed the call button. Reno saw that his hand was trembling.

"Boss, what's happened?"

"Natalya's dead," said Tseng, and covered his eyes with the hand that would not stop shaking.

"Dead? No, that's not possible. She's in – "

"Icicle Inn, yes. And they were there too. Whoever they are, they killed her."


	4. Death is Part of the Process

**CHAPTER FOUR: DEATH IS PART OF THE PROCESS  
_[in which Reno and Rude discuss mortality, we learn how Knox escaped death, and Reno plans his own funeral]_ **

It was past midnight when Reno returned from Costa del Sol. In the sunken lounge on the 48th floor he found Rude asleep on one of the grey couches. The little cat was keeping him company, curled up by his feet as neat and tight as the knot in Tseng's tie. Something about the cat – its warmth, its homeliness – put a lump in Reno's throat. He stretched himself out on the opposite couch, arms folded behind his head. Only then did he realize that, behind the sunglasses, Rude's eyes were wide open, staring out the window.

"Hey, Rude." He pitched his voice low.

"Hey, Reno. How was Costa?"

On the other side of the vast panes of glass the clouds seethed, forming and reforming in monstrous shapes drenched with the colours of corruption, rotten green, bruise purple, mouldy grey.

"Sunny," said Reno.

The little cat opened its eyes and yawned so wide that Reno could see the ridges on the roof of its mouth. It made a performance of stretching: first one paw, then the other, followed by an arching of its back and a fluffing of its tail, as if it were warming up for some big action. Then it curled around and fell sleep again, purring loudly.

The Turks were no strangers to loss. Just over a year ago their rookie, Marr, had been killed by Genesis in Banora, along with the one of the guys from the Mideel branch office. They'd hardly had a chance to get to know him. The year before that, Odilie had been captured by the Engetsu in the marine caves. Her captors had sent her home over a period of weeks, piece by rotting piece. And the year before that, Lou had been lost in the mission Charlie sabotaged…

But those deaths could be set to the account of known hostile agents, enemies whose names and faces were carved into each Turk's memory against the day when they would even the score. Natalya's death was different. It had come to her namelessly out of the darkness, giving no reason, and its agents had vanished into shadows, leaving no clue.

"Anyone else around?" asked Reno. "Where's Ciss?"

"She's gone north with Tseng to see if they can find… anything. Information. Apparently Nats was interviewing a candidate just before she was killed. And they'll bring her body back. If there's anything left to find." Rude paused. "I let Knox and Mozo know. Moe'll be back tomorrow. Knox came straight up from Junon. But he's gone home to his family. He said Barbara's taking it really hard. She's known Nats for years. And Roz… I think she went to see her sister. How's the Chief?"

"Silent. Furious. When he finds whoever's responsible, it isn't going to be pretty."

"The Legend know anything?"

Reno's lip curled contemptuously. "Like he cares. Beach all day, babes all night, booze on tap; he's like, don't bug me, man. I can't believe I ever looked up to that guy."

"He and Natalya used to have a thing going, Rosalind told me."

"What?" said Reno, astonished. "Nats and Charlie? Seriously? It must have been a while back."

"Before our time. Apparently some of the old rogue union guys from Corel stole classified documents from the mansion at Nibelheim and were trying to sell them to Wutai. She and the Legend were sent after them. He was supposed to go in and retrieve the documents and she was covering his back. But she messed up, and it was her or the mission, and he chose her. We never did get the documents."

"The Chief must've skinned them alive."

"You said it. And then he banished them to opposite ends of the planet for six months, Roz says."

"Is that why Tseng got promoted over her?"

Rude shook his head. "She wouldn't have been any good at his job. She's too… empathetic."

"And too hot," added Reno. "For an old lady."

Rude chuckled. "I always thought it was the Chief who was sweet on her. I thought that was why he gave her all the safe missions."

"Nah, he wouldn't do that. You know he loves us all equally."

Where did it spring from, the laughter that burst out of them then? Loud, cackling, ugly sound… It woke the little cat, who hissed and fled under the sofa. Rude and Reno laughed until their sides ached and the tears burned in their eyes.

"Oh God – it's not funny – " gasped Reno, pressing a fist to his chest. "Oh, shit. Shit, Nats. Why'd they kill her? Why her? Of all of us?" The laughter in his face had twisted into anger. "Safe mission be damned. No such fucking thing, is there? You know what, Rude? I bet she let her guard down. She was always doing that. She probably stopped to help them change a tire or something and they blew a hole in her. Fuck it. Fuck _it_ – "

"I know – "

"And fuck fucking Charlie for not giving a shit. I wish now I'd punched his fucking face in, smug git. I can't get my head around it. Can you? I can't believe we won't see her again. I can't believe she won't walk in tomorrow with that brown paper bag of those cookies she keeps bringing us, like she's our _mum,_ or something. God, what's a woman like that even _doing_ in the Turks in the first place? I mean, look at me, you know: what the hell else could I do? But Nats, man – she should have married some nice ordinary joe and gone to live in the boondocks, farming chocobos and baking cookies for her dozen kids. It's just _shit._"

Out of breath, he fell silent. The energy of his anger was already ebbing from him.

No loss stayed fresh for long. Grief waxed and waned and faded. Life would go on. Reno knew this; every Turk knew it; they had lived through it before, and they would do so again, next month or next year, until the day the bullets that bore their own names found them….

Rude said, "Nats would have been bored with an ordinary joe. And she hated chocobos. Remember the time we were crossing the desert south of Corel?"

"And she kept falling off."

"And every time she fell, it tried to sit on her. _I'm not a bloody egg!_ Remember?"

"She sure didn't have a way with birds," Reno chuckled.

"She was a city girl at heart. She loved Midgar. She loved this job. I bet if you could ask her now, she'd still say it was worth it."

Reno leaned back into the sofa cushions, closing his eyes. Rude was right, as always. Turk or chocobo farmer, Shinra executive or Wuteng shopkeeper, everybody ended up dead in the end. Even the Chief would die one day; even that legendary jerk, Charlie. At least while Natalya was alive, she'd _lived. _ Weren't they all in this job for the same reason?

For a while, neither of them felt like saying anything else. They lay and listened to the sounds of the Shinra Building at night: the hum of the reactors, the buzz of the lights, the gurgling of pipes, the occasional rattle of the elevator, and the soft, steady whirr of the ventilation system. The cat came out from under the sofa and jumped up by Rude's feet; though he frowned at it and curled back his feet a little, he allowed it to stay. It lay with its paws tucked under its white chest, watching them both through half-closed eyes.

Reno broke the silence. "So, you planning to sleep here, Rude, or what? You going to go home?"

"No. My place feels kind of… empty."

"I know what you mean," said Reno. "Mine too."

"It's late, anyway. I'll just stay here and do some thinking. I don't feel like sleeping."

"Yeah, me neither." Reno's foot had begun to jiggle restlessly. "So….mind if I keep you company?"

"As long as you don't talk."

They lay on their sofas and watched the clouds boil, and Reno smoked a cigarette or two, and each thought their own thoughts about life and death and work and loss and friendship, and those thoughts were not so different. They had known each other for almost six years now, which was a big chunk of your life when you were only twenty-one. After a while Rude went and got two beers from the fridge in the kitchen. They drank them in companionable silence.

Eventually, the night ended, and a new day began.

.

Death, like everything else in Shinra, followed a certain protocol. The Board's commiserations to Commander Veld were duly noted in the minutes of the morning's meeting, as was President Shinra's insistence that the party or parties responsible for such an insult to the company's authority should be found, and punished, as swiftly as possible.

Later, Lazard and Reeve visited Veld in his office to say how sorry they were, and to ask if there was anything they could do.

In the afternoon HR sent round the announcement via email: _killed in the line of duty._

Tseng arrived at sunset, by helicopter, with Natalya's body in a bag. Reno and Knox carried the body down to the mortuary on the dispensary floor. Tseng went to his office, to begin filling out the paperwork necessary for the funeral, while Rude climbed into the helicopter and flew back to Icicle Inn, to help Cissnei hunt for the perpetrators.

In the white-tiled company mortuary, Knox and Reno laid the bag with its stiff contents on a stainless steel table. Knox unzipped the bag a little way, enough to see her face, framed by the softness of her thick dark hair. Her skin was bluish-white, her flesh absolutely cold. Death had made of her face the usual optical illusion: in one instant it looked like the Natalya they remembered, fast asleep; the next moment it became a stranger's face, all trace of Natalya erased.

Looking into the face of a dead colleague was the closest Reno ever came to being convinced of the existence of souls. These were Natalya's features, but this was not Natalya. Something had fled. But where? Up to the stars? Into the mako, as the hippies and tree-huggers wanted everyone to believe? Where did the flame go when he snuffed a match with two wet fingers? Nowhere. It just went out.

Knox stroked her hair and touched her cheek. Then he zipped the bag closed.

Eighteen years they'd worked together.

Reno said to Knox, "Want to go get pissed?" and somewhat to his surprise, Knox said, "Yeah."

With Natalya's death, Knox, at thirty-five, was now the oldest of the head office Turks. He was a tall man, with dark hair and fair skin; the severity of his scarred features was softened by a pair of rimless glasses, and occasionally by a smile. He came originally from Gongaga, and like all good backwoods boys from the deep south he was an accomplished swordsman. SOLDIER had wooed him at one time, but his loyalty belonged entirely to Veld, who had plucked him from sentence of death in his home town in order to make him a Turk. His story, as far as Reno knew it, went like this: when he was seventeen years old, a friend of his had been kidnapped by an organized crime ring operating out of Gongaga. Sword on back, Knox had forded rivers and crossed deserts to find the cave where his friend was being held; he had then killed every last member of the gang, including the boss, thus calling down on his own head the fury of Gongaga's mayor, who had been growing fat on the gang's backhanders for years.

Commander Veld had happened to be in Gongaga at the time, sorting out a problem that was standing in the way of Shinra's plans to build a reactor there. The Shinra Electric Company had been smaller in those days; its name did not yet inspire that necessary degree of fear in those who might seek to oppose or exploit it, and the Mayor of Gongaga was greedy. Veld quietly removed him, and returned to Midgar with Knox tucked under his wing.

You'd expect, thought Reno, that Knox might resent seeing Tseng get promoted over him, given that the Boss was younger by a good ten years. But Tseng lived and breathed Shinra. If he had any kind of a private life, Reno hadn't been able to sniff it out. Knox was married; he was the only Turk with a family, and whenever he was in Midgar he clocked off religiously at the appointed hour, rushing home to be with his wife and two small sons. Decent guy. Different kind of world. Reno couldn't really imagine what Knox's home life must be like.

So he was surprised when Knox agreed to risk the wrath of Barbara and go drinking. From the start the plan was to get legless. They went down to the Turks' usual haunt, the Goblins Bar, across from Les Marroniers on the corner of Loveless Avenue, and put away one pint after another of draught Zolom Triple XXX. They played pool and cribbage, and talked about anything but death – the new girls on reception, the idiocies of HR, the latest prototypes coming out of Scarlett's workshops. By midnight they were seeing double, miscounting the points and dropping their cards. Knox's tongue sounded too large for his mouth when he stood up and declared, "Gotta go home now." Reno tried to convince him he should call Barbara to tell her he had to work all night, and then come back to Reno's place to sleep it off, but Knox would not be persuaded. On wobbly legs he staggered away in the direction of the train station.

Reno set off for home, but, unable to walk a straight line, eventually found himself standing outside the Shinra building. All the lights were blazing. Its brightness and warmth welcomed him in. A security guard sat at the front desk; a cleaning lady with an industrial-sized hoover was vacuuming the red-carpeted stairs. Holding on tight to the banister, Reno hauled himself up to the mezzanine, fell into the elevator, and collapsed gratefully onto its floor…

Someone was slapping his cheek. He struggled to raise his eyelids, but they were so heavy. Two hands, one warm, one cold, both equally strong, lifted him to his feet.

"For God's sake, Reno. Passed out in the elevator. What next?"

At the sound of that harsh, gravelly voice, a grin plastered itself across Reno's face. Commander Veld had found him. Now the Chief would take care of everything, just like he always did.

Veld guided his young Turk down a corridor. Through the beery fog that engulfed it, Reno's brain registered that they were on the 66th floor. He was led into Veld's office, and through to another room with a bed. The Chief was famously so dedicated to his work that he had made his home in the Shinra building; Reno had never heard of him living anywhere else. He told Reno to lie down, took off his boots, held the wastepaper bin for him while Reno threw up, covered him with a blanket, and went to get him a glass of water. Reno took a long sip, savouring the coolness in his mouth, and swallowed.

"Go to sleep now," said Veld.

Obediently Reno put his head down on the pillow. Veld got up to go, stretching out a hand for the light switch. "Hey, Chief," Reno murmured drowsily.

"What?"

"When I die, I want you to take my ashes up in the helicopter and scatter them into the wind. Right over Midgar. OK?"

"If you like. Now sleep." Veld turned down the switch. A soft darkness fell.

* * *

_Author's note_

_This is the end of Part I: Reno and the Cat. Part Two is called 'Hard Things and Soft Things'._

_The title 'Death is Part of the Process' is borrowed from an early 1980s TV drama about the battle against apartheid in South Africa. Its relevance to the world of FFVII will be explained in Part 6. _


	5. New Recruits

**CHAPTER 5: NEW RECRUITS**  
_**In which Cissnei is redeployed, the rookies play a mini-game, and Tseng gives Reno a fat lip.**_

[revised 19.9.10, from a previous version that I wasn't satisfied with]

_**

* * *

**_

The funeral the next day was brief. Lazard sent a wreath, as did some of the SOLDIERs who had gone on past missions with Natalya. The flowers were silk and paper. The Turks burned these, together with her body, in the incinerator. They put her ashes in an urn, to be taken at some suitable time to her birthplace in Mideel, as she had once requested. Then they all went back to work.

A fortnight later, Rude and Cissnei returned from Icicle Inn, having made no progress with their investigations. Reno and Cissnei were immediately dispatched to Junon, to investigate reports of suspicious individuals asking question in the docks and the old city. Again they found nothing. Returning to Midgar, Cissnei barely had time to shower and change before she was back in the helicopter and on her way to Wutai, this time with Rosalind.

Always Cissnei. Why? Reno's subterfuge antennae were twitching. It was as if the Commander were keeping her out of the office on purpose. What was he planning? What was up?

Meanwhile, Tseng was also on the move, from Corel to the Mythil Mines and down to Wall Market, to make his preliminary assessments of the candidates Veld had selected. All three passed muster, together with a fourth, late entry from Icicle Inn. Tseng gathered them together at the Academy in Junon, and the Commander flew down, accompanied by Rosalind, to put them through their paces.

Three of the candidates were acceptable. The fourth, the boy from Madouge Corner, was quick and strong, but scored poorly on the intelligence test. Veld handed him on for assessment by SOLDIER.

("So there's an intelligence test now?" said Rosalind. "Was that brought in because of Reno?")

Three was an unusually large number of trainees to take on at one time. Until they learned the ropes, rookies were hard work. But the Department was desperately short-staffed, and Veld did not want to pass on any of them. All in their different ways had promise. Natalya, in her final mission, had done well.

A month after her death, therefore, Tseng gathered the team together for their customary morning briefing, and announced that the new recruits they'd been awaiting would be coming in for an orientation that afternoon.

Reno cheered. "It's about time we had a rookie to do the filing."

"_Three_ rookies, no less," Mozo reminded him. "One for the filing, one for the stock-taking, and one for the sandwich run. Man, who knows - we might even be able to have a day off."

"I wouldn't count on it," said Tseng. "Moving on to the next item, Cissnei's been transferred to SOLDIER -"

"What?" cried Reno, sitting up in his chair. "She's left us?"

"Not permanently; she's still on D.A.R. payroll – "

"But she only came back a month ago. What's she gone upstairs for?"

"She's been appointed to the new post of Turk-SOLDIER liaison officer – "

"What the –"

Tseng quelled Reno with a look. Then, after glancing round the table to make sure they were all listening, he went on, "It's something the Commander's been considering for a while. Recently we've been undertaking a large number of joint missions, and he and Director Lazard have decided we need a point of common contact. Cissnei was selected because of her low profile. She's been away from Head Office for quite a while; and after the mass desertion last year, and the success of the current recruitment drive, most of SOLDIERs rank and file are pretty new."

"You mean you choose her because they don't know she's a Turk," Mozo interpreted, which prompted Rosalind to ask, "So she's under cover?"

"Not exactly. But Commander Veld and Director Lazard think she'll find it easier to be accepted by SOLDIER initially if no one draws attention to the fact that she's one of us. I'm sure I don't need to remind any of you that there hasn't always been a history of – how can I put it – mutual confidence between SOLDIER and this department – "

"Like that's our fault," Reno muttered.

Tseng ignored him. "For the time being, therefore, we'd prefer to keep Cissnei's identity as a Turk under wraps. You are not being asked to lie if someone asks you a direction question about her. Our aim is to build trust, and lying would defeat the purpose. But use discretion. And please refrain from talking about her to the new recruits. We don't know yet if they're going to make it past probation."

Briefing completed, Tseng gathered his papers and left. The others dispersed to their various missions, leaving Rude, Reno, and Rosalind in the office, together with the little cat, whom nobody had ever succeeded in evicting. It lay on a pile of unfiled reports in the corner of Rude's desk, its paws under its chest, purring contentedly.

Reno was meant to be filling out a requisition form for the components he needed to upgrade the bugging system at the residence of the envoy from Wutai, but he was finding it difficult to concentrate.

First he clicked his pen-top, in, out, in, out…

When that palled, he bounced an eraser on his desk.

Then he began swiveling round in his chair. Its bearings squeaked. The little cat stopped purring, and watched him with wide, astonished eyes.

"Quit it," said Rude mildly.

"I'm thinking," said Reno. "I need to move when I think."

"Go have a cigarette or something. You're like a Jumping on hyper today."

The chair spun a little faster. Reno said, "So, who've they sent Ciss to spy on, d'you think?"

"Lazard?" Rude suggested.

Reno shook his head. "He's in on it. Turk-SOLDIER liaison officer, my arse. You can smell that steaming pile of crap a mile off. No, it'll be someone Lazard wants us to target. Somebody inside SOLDIER."

"Maybe it's that Second, Zack Fair. He was closer to Angeal than any of the others."

Rosalind, who had been listening, now chipped in with, "But Cissnei likes him."

Reno gave her a withering look. "How does she even _know_ him?"

"She doesn't know him. She just saw him in the lobby the other day. She said he was the hottest guy in Shinra."

At that moment a sharp pain jabbed Reno in the chest: it was brief, but fierce, as if someone had stubbed out a cigarette in his gullet. Heartburn – yeah, that must be it; too many late nights, too little solid food, and not enough sleep.

"I think you could be right, Roz," said Rude. "Zack Fair was Angeal's protégé, and Angeal was Genesis' closest friend."

"I bet Director Lazard thinks Zack Fair knows something about what really happened with those two," Rosalind elaborated. "Maybe Zack even knows where they are. And Lazard wants Ciss to get Zack to tell her."

This was nothing out of the ordinary. Pain was not the only, or even always the best way to extract information. The Turks could play nice when the occasion called for it, and seductions of all kinds were part of their arsenal.

"Well, that would explain why they chose her," said Rude. "If they'd just wanted an anonymous Turk they could have got one of the branch office guys. And like you said, Reno, Ciss isn't really desk job material."

"But she is gorgeous," Rosalind added wistfully.

Reno's chair was spinning faster now.

"Hey, be careful," Rosalind warned him. "You don't want to unscrew the seat."

Reno pressed a foot to the floor. The chair braked and stopped with a jolt. ""Fuck it," he declared. "I'm not happy about this at all."

"You worried about Ciss?" asked Rude in some surprise.

"I'm pissed off. I thought that now she was back we could be partners again, like we were down in Mideel. I like working with Ciss. We did all our training together, and I'm used to the way she operates."

"Not to mention the fact that she's willing to put up with you," added Rosalind.

Reno stuck out his tongue at her. Then he went on, "And now when I meet her in the elevator I'm supposed to act like I don't even fucking know her, so yeah, I guess you could say I'm feeling pretty let down. Ciss is one of us. She belongs here, with us, not passed over to SOLDIER like - like some failed rookie."

"It's just a secondment," Rude reminded him. "And she was the logical choice."

"Look, I just have bad feeling about it, OK? I've heard some things about Mr Zack Omigosh-I'm-a-backwoods-virgin-want-to-see-my-big-sword? Fair. I've seen him at parties. He's got a reputation."

"Takes one to know one," said Rosalind tartly.

'Thanks Roz, that's helpful. Look – my point is, sure, Zack Fair'll jump in the sack with Ciss. Who wouldn't? But that doesn't mean he'll tell her his secrets. To get those she'll have to get under his skin. And I don't think..." Reno tailed off.

"What?" Rude prompted.

"He's not just some cute guy. He's SOLDIER. Pumped with mako. They're all monsters. She could really get hurt."

"She's done this before," Rude reminded him. "She knows the score."

"But she _likes_ him. Roz, you said so."

"I said she thought he was hot," Rosalind corrected him.

"Still not good," said Reno. "You can't start having feelings for your mark. You have to keep the line drawn."

Rude did not deny this, but said, "She'll do whatever it takes to get the job done."

"Yeah, yeah. I'm just saying – if she gets hurt, I'm having his balls, is all."

Having got that off his chest, he jumped from the chair and loped away to complete the preparations for orienting the new recruits. The requisition form remained on his desk, unfinished, forgotten.

.

The introduction of new recruits to the department was always a momentous occasion, like the birth of a child, or the celebration of an arranged marriage. Excitement was mixed with trepidation. Every rookie was an unknown quantity, and the rookies were not the only ones who had to learn to adapt. The lives of the Turks, and the Department of Administrative Research itself, were changed forever each time a new individual was added to their number, in unpredictable and sometimes subtle ways.

After lunch all available Turks assembled in the Commander's office on the 66th floor, to meet the three strangers who would, from this moment forwards, be their partners and companions, share their duties and guard their backs; on whom their lives might one day depend. The first was a boy, the second a woman, and the third one was a girl. Reno took his time looking them over carefully while Commander Veld introduced each one in turn.

The boy, Cavour, was no more nor less than what Reno would have expected in someone slum-bred and Corneo-trained, though his appearance hinted at a more distant Costan ancestry: matt olive skin, dark eyes, coarse dark hair dressed in a complicated gangster hairstyle, with a ducktail at the nape of hs neck, cornrows on the sides, and thick spikey bangs falling over his wide forehead. The Chief said he was sixteen, but he carried himself with the confidence of someone much older – someone who'd been packing a pistol before they learnt how to shave. That Wall Market swagger would have to be trained out of him, as it had been beaten down (though carefully not extinguished) in Reno. Turks were designed to be inconspicuous.

The woman was interesting. The Chief didn't say how old she was, but Reno could see she was in her mid-twenties, at least. Possibly older than Tseng, and _much_ older than their standard recruiting age. The Chief seemed to think this needed some kind of explanation, because he now told them that this woman, Mink, was the last candidate Natalya had scouted before she died, up in Icicle Inn.

Reno already knew something of her story through Rude, who had met her before: Mink was not only a new recruit, but also a witness to Natalya's murder, and Rude had questioned her several times in the course of his investigations. Her interview with Nats had taken place in the bar of the inn. When it was over, Nats had left to walk back to the Shinra chalet. On the way, she had phoned Commander Veld to give him the results of the interview, and it was while she was on the phone that she had been ambushed. Meanwhile Mink, for whatever reason [the woman wasn't much of a talker] had followed Nats outside in time to find her beset by four or five men [the other eyewitnesses couldn't agree on an exact number], had driven them off with her fists, and then knelt in the bloody snow to hold Natalya's hand while she died.

To Reno's mind, these actions had made Mink something of an honorary Turk already. Rude had described her as looking "Like Sephiroth, if he was a woman," and Reno could now see exactly what he meant: Mink had the same kind of cold, sexless beauty. She was tall and broad-shouldered, and her straight, hip-length hair was mostly silver, streaked with remnants of black. Her eyes, however, were reddish-brown, not blue. She even stood like a SOLDIER, arms folded, feet apart. According to Rude, she had been a mercenary and a bounty hunter before joining the Turks.

The third recruit, the little girl, whom the Chief called Aviva, was a tiny scrap of a thing, dressed in a suit at least a size too big for her. She looked as if she'd never eaten a square meal in her life. There were hollows under her cheekbones. A faint red scar marred her right cheek. Her skin was very white, and her huge eyes and close-cropped curls were sooty black.

To Reno's experienced eye, this child was the most intriguing of the three. He was willing to bet she couldn't be any older than twelve. Of course Cissnei had been only ten when she was recruited, but she hadn't been put straight to work, she'd been sent off to school. And Tseng hadn't been much older – but then, the Boss was a special case. So what, he wondered, made this kid special? What unsuspected skills, what improbable potential, had Nats and the Chief spotted in her? The Chief said that knives were her weapon of choice, which made sense – the kid wasn't exactly built like a martial artist – but there had to be more to her than that. Apart from anything else, the Chief never hired anyone who hadn't already shown that they could kill. So who had this waif killed? Had it been a fight in the schoolyard, like it was with Cissnei?

"Take them away now and show them around," said Commander Veld to his team. "They'll start full-time tomorrow."

Knox took the recruits down in the first lift; Rude, Reno, Rosalind and Mozo followed in the other. When Reno came into the office, he saw the woman, Mink, standing against the far wall, arms folded; the punk Cavour was studying the noticeboard, and Aviva was petting the cat.

"What's its name?" she asked of no one in particular. Reno was surprised by her voice. He'd expected something high-pitched, musical, girly-girly, but this kid sounded like she smoked a pack a day. She also sounded a little breathless, like she was fighting to hold herself steady. He guessed she was probably feeling pretty scared.

"We haven't settled on a name for it yet," said Rosalind. "Mostly we just call it 'Cat'."

"I'm surprised you're allowed to keep pets," said the silver-haired woman, Mink.

"Oh, the cat works here," laughed Knox. "It catches rats, same as the rest of us. Who wants to do the honours? Reno?"

"Sure. OK, rookies, listen up. That there's the photocopier, derp, there's the water-cooler - if you finish a bottle, replace it, or Tseng will chew your ear off – stationary cupboard's in there, kitchen down here, coffee's in the cupboard, bring your own mug, beer's in the fridge, and if you see there's only one left, know, O rookies, that it _always_ has my name on it. Understood? There's more of us than there are desks, so sit wherever; it's first come first served, but we're never all in the office at the same time anyway. The materia room and the weapons room are on the other side of the hall. The doors are labeled. Your pass keys will open them. And this," he finished with a flourish, "Is the ventilation hatch."

Rude grinned. "It's initiation time."

Mink's brow furrowed. Cavour glanced nervously from face to face. Aviva's huge black eyes were fixed on Reno, unblinking, unmoving, like he'd just drawn a gun on her and was aiming right for the middle of her forehead.

He wondered what they'd heard. There were so many myths and rumours going around.

"Right then, noobs," he said briskly, handing them each a sheet of paper, "This is how we separate winners from losers in the Department of Administrative Research. What you've got there is a list of fifteen items that you have to collect from the floors above us. You have two hours to get as many of them as you can and then find your way back here. If you come back after the two hour limit, you lose. The lifts and the stairs are out of bounds – you have to go through the ventilation shafts. I've put out materia for you, and whatever you pick up you can use, if you know how. Just don't blow up the air-con, OK? Or you lose. And don't set fire to anything. The Chief hates that. Now, if you look at your list you'll see that every item has a numeric weighting. Some of them are harder to get your hands on, so they're worth more. The winner is whoever has the highest aggregate score at the end. Got it?"

"What do we get if we win?" asked Aviva in her husky voice.

Mozo grinned at her. "You get to buy us a round of drinks at the Goblins. And you, twinkie, can treat yourself to a lemonade."

"But we haven't been paid yet," Mink objected.

"Them's the rules," said Knox. "Time and stealth are of the essence. Officially Commander Veld knows nothing about this. If you get caught, you're on your own. In that eventuality we expect you to eat the list and lie. I think you already know how the Chief deals with screw-ups. So don't screw up."

"But if we lose, what happens then?" asked Cavour.

Reno pointed a finger at the rookie's chest. "Bang," he said. The other Turks laughed. Cavour's thick black brows drew together in a scowl, while the woman, Mink, merely continued to look unimpressed. Aviva's great black hungry eyes grew even rounder, and the hand that clutched Reno's paper clenched into a fist.

Mozo's put-down about the lemonade had got to her; Reno had seen her wince. Now, even thought she was still scared, she was determined to win; he could see that too, in the way she stood very upright, shoulders square; in the set of her jaw and the light in her eye. 'I'll show them', she was thinking.

And he thought, _yeah, you go for it, kid. Show us what you're made of. _

While they were talking, Rude had removed the ventilation hatch. "Let's move it," he said.

"Hang on just a minute," said Cavour. "Who's this Mrs Miggins? Who are all these people? What's 'Dark Nation'? How do we find it?"

Mink came forward and laid a hand on Cavour's arm. "You have to work it out," she told him. "That's your job." To Knox she said, "Can we have some flashlights?"

"Right here," said Rosalind, producing a box.

Mink went in first, followed by Cavour. Little Aviva hung back. She kept glancing up from the paper to Reno, and back down to the paper again. Then, as if she'd suddenly figured something out, she scrunched the paper into a little ball, shoved it into the pocket of her trousers, and climbed into the shaft, vanishing almost immediately into the darkness.

"Come on, let's go," said Rosalind.

She and her fellow Turks hurried to the floor between floors, to the surveillance room where Tseng awaited them in front of a bank of closed circuit TV screens.

"Let me see your list," he said to Reno. "President Shinra's Business Card – only twenty-five points?"

"That's an easy one," Reno explained. "They must know his office is at the top of the building. He keeps the cards in his top drawer, unlocked. They'll find them."

"A PHS photograph of SOLDIER second class Zack Fair doing jump-squats – really, Reno."

"I know, I know, too easy."

"Hojo's glasses… A miniature train from Reeve's model of Midgar… One of Palmer's donuts. Scarlett's lipstick, only fifty points? I think it's worth more than that. Dark Nation's paw-print… Lazard's monogrammed handkerchief. Nice… One of Mrs Miggins's wooden spoons from the cafeteria – "

"Nasty," said Rude admiringly.

"Sephiroth's signature on their arm?"

"He's signed weirder parts of bodies."

"Heidegger's underpants?" exclaimed Tseng. "Five hundred points? Wouldn't that be an automatic win?"

"And I'm pretty sure he keeps a couple of pairs in his back closet along with his spare dress uniform, so they shouldn't be _that_ hard to get," said Reno. "But I had to put the weighting up, because nobody ever even _tries_ to get Heidegger's underpants."

"Ugh, who'd want to?" said Rosalind, pulling a face. "You'd have to touch them - Oh, look, " she pointed at a screen, "There's the boy now. And Mink's made it up to the labs."

Cavour had come out on the 65th floor and was in the map room, checking out the scale model of Midgar. Mink, meanwhile, had dropped from a ceiling vent on the 68th Floor. They watched as she looked around, got her bearings, saw a scientist in a lab coat approaching, and hid behind a corner. When the scientist turned the corner, Mink planted a swift blow on the back of his neck: he crumpled to the floor unconscious. She dragged him into the men's washroom – the action moved at this point onto another screen – and propped him on the toilet seat in one of the cubicles. She put on his lab coat, took his glasses, and broke them under her heel. She went back into the corridor and then into a control room (one screen over) where she spoke to a scientist, and went through a further door (another screen change) into what the Turks recognized as Hojo's personal lab.

Hojo himself was standing with his back to her, his attention wholly aborbed by the huge amorphous blob slowly taking shape as something unimaginable in the giant test-tube that filled the centre of the room. Mink spoke to him. He turned. She showed him the broken glasses in her hand. Hojo looked annoyed. She said something. He took off his glasses and gave them to her, then took another pair from the inside pocket of his lab coat and put them on, waving Mink away.

Knox whistled. "I like her style."

Mink put Hojo's glasses in her trouser pocket. She left Hojo's lab, went back through the other lab into the corridor, and on to the men's washroom, where she locked the door. She draped the lab coat over the unconscious scientist's shoulders and put her suit jacket back on. Then she took out a little knife, climbed onto the cubicle partition, unscrewed the ventilation grille, pulled herself into the shaft, and was lost to sight.

"Seven minutes," said Tseng. "She's good."

Of the little girl Aviva, there was no sign. Reno wondered guiltily if she was lost in the pipeworks.

Two of the CCTV cameras were not working: Heidegger's office and Palmer's office came up as blank screens. In fact Palmer's camera had broken down several months ago; it kept slipping down to the bottom of Reno's to-do list. Heidegger's must have malfunctioned just now. "Damn," said Reno. "I was really hoping this time one of them would shoot for the jackpot. Now we'll never know."

Mozo asked, "What d'you reckon, Reno: boxers or briefs?"

"Thongs," Reno grinned. "PVC."

"Please don't," said Tseng.

"I reckon he favours boxers in a fetching shade of khaki camoflage," said Mozo, "With a big red Shinra logo on the crotch."

"Moogles," said Rude.

Back on the 65th floor, Cavour had finally made up his mind to grab a toy train and run. He dived headfirst into the ventilation shaft. It took him almost half an hour to reappear, this time in the presidential suite, holding a sphere of materia in each hand. By this point there was little doubt that Mink would win. She had been to the cafeteria on the 61st floor, spoken to the fearsome Mrs Miggins, and been given a spoon in exchange. She had gone down from there to the 58th floor, dropped into the SOLDIER changing room, dressed herself in a pair of third class trousers and a sleeveless purple turtleneck, and walked out into the corridor. The effect of her appearance was like poking an anthill with a stick: SOLDIERs seethed around her. Women, especially beautiful women, were a rarity in their department. Guided by her attentive entourage, Mink was escorted to the lounge area, where she found Zack Fair sitting with Kunsel. An animated conversation ensued. Whatever it was she said to him, Zack willingly obliged, grinning handsomely and talking non-stop while he went through his moves.

Reno knew Rosalind and Rude were waiting for him to say something, so he gritted his teeth and held his tongue. He was looking out for Cissnei, but could not see her.

"Twenty minutes left," said Tseng. "Where's Aviva?"

"If she doesn't turn up, I'll go look for her," Reno volunteered.

Mozo laughed. "You love any excuse to go crawling through that maze, man."

With ten minutes left to go, the Turks returned to their office to wait by the ventilation shaft. It wasn't long before Cavour came tumbling out, his pockets heavy with materia, his hands clutching treasures, his hair full of dust and cobwebs.

Mink was next. "Well, sir?" she said to Tseng. "Do I pass inspection? I'm assuming you watched the whole performance."

The clock was ticking. Two minutes. One minute. Thirty seconds.

From inside the shaft came a distant rattling that rapidly grew louder and closer… Aviva slithered out, belly down like a snake, and somersaulted onto the floor.

Getting to her feet, she reached inside her suit jacket and withdrew a wad of silky fabric, which she threw, with some force, in Reno's direction. He caught it against his chest, unfurled it, and, holding it by his fingertips, lifted it up for everyone to see: a pair of extra-large paisley boxer shorts, embroidered with the monogram **HH****.**

For a long moment, there was complete silence.

** "**Not - Heidegger's underpants?" exclaimed Rosalind in astonishment. "That's a first!"

Wordlessly, the girl nodded.

Something was wrong. Reno could feel it. And he could see that the others sensed it, too. The kid had just won the game – won spectacularly – but she didn't look happy about it. She looked sick… and scared. Scared sick. Like she might throw up. Like the only thing she wanted right now was somewhere to hide. Her face seemed even whiter than before; the scar was a livid slash across her cheekbone. Weirdly, her hair was wet, as if she'd just taken a shower.

Even Tseng seemed to have realized that something was amiss. "How did you get these?" he demanded.

Aviva opened her mouth. Her throat worked, but no sound came out.

"Answer me," said Tseng.

_Jeez_, thought Reno, _go easy, Boss. She's only little._

Rude stepped forward then, and reached out a hand to touch her shoulder. The girl jumped, glancing round wildly at him. On Rude's face Reno saw a strange expression: compassion, fighting against disgust.

"It's OK," Rude told her gently. "You don't have to say it."

Behind those sunglasses, he was sometimes the quickest of them all to see things.

The other Turks continued to stare at her. Reno watched the understanding dawn in their eyes: uncertainty gave way to disbelief, and then to revulsion, mingled with dismay. Mozo got there first, then Tseng, then Knox, and finally Rosalind. The two new Turks, Cavour and Mink, glanced at each other; they still weren't quite sure what was going on.

"Oh…my," said Rosalind, summing up what they were all thinking. "You _didn't?_"

A red flush crept over the girl's face, from her lips to the roots of her cropped hair.

"Bloody hell," muttered Mozo.

Knox put his hand over his mouth.

Tseng began, "Aviva, you – " but seemed lost for words to go on.

_Guess the training manual doesn't cover __this_, thought Reno angrily – though why he should be angry, and why that anger should be directed at Tseng, he couldn't have explained.

The girl's black eyes darted from one face to another. She looked bewildered now as well as frightened. "What?" she demanded. "Did I do something wrong? You said we have to do whatever it takes to get the job done. I did that. I won. Isn't that what you wanted? Sir?" She looked at Tseng.

Tseng quickly looked away; and Reno wondered if, in his mind's eye, the Boss was imagining what he was imagining.

"Aviva," said Knox hesitantly. "I don't think you understand. It was just – a game – "

"A _game?" _Aviva's mouth twisted, and she pressed a hand to her throat, as if she'd suddenly gagged. "Oh - god. I though it was a test. Wasn't it a test?" Her eyes were on Reno now. "You said if we lost… Oh, god. Oh no. I'm so dumb. You were just joking, weren't you?"

There were tears in her eyes. She rubbed at them with a clenched fist, and said furiously, "Well, fine! Think what you like! Go on, have a good laugh at me! Who cares, if it's all just a stupid game anyway - "

Then she choked on a sob, and fled from the room, both hands clapped over her mouth.

"Rosalind, go after her," said Tseng, gathering his wits.

"Yes, sir."

"I'll go too, sir," said Mink, following Rosalind.

Only the men were left in the office. They all looked at Tseng, though what they expected from him, they themselves did not know. They had not laughed at Aviva, yet they felt cheapened. They had not told her to do it or even suggested it, yet they felt they were in some way to blame. And they were angry with her, too, for spoiling the fun of the afternoon. The pictures in their minds were ugly ones. She had seemed to all of them, not just Reno, to be little more than a child.

To calm his churning guts, Reno took out a cigarette and lit it.

Tseng ran a hand over his hair, a gesture he made only in moments of severe uncertainty. Out loud he wondered, "What was she thinking of?"

"Well," drawled Reno, blowing the smoke down his nostrils, "At least you got to admire her willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice."

Tseng crossed the room in a fluid movement and took hold of Reno's arm. "Bad joke," he said. His voice was soft, but his fingers in Reno's flesh were like grappling hooks. It was always stupid to provoke Tseng, and often painful, and Reno knew it – but, as he'd proved so many time before, sometimes he couldn't help being stupid. Or didn't care.

"Outside," Tseng ordered.

He hauled Reno down the corridor and round the corner to where they could not be seen through the glass doors or from the elevators. There was no sign of the girls. Taking hold of Reno by the collar, Tseng pushed him into the corner and held him there, and Reno let him do it.

"What's wrong with you?" Tseng demanded.

Reno bared his teeth. "With _me_, Boss?"

"You make a joke out of everything. You take nothing seriously."

"So? What's the big deal?"

"For God's sake. Heidegger!" Tseng spat the name in disgust.

Reno shrugged. "Whatever it takes, yo."

"Did she think we _wanted_ her to do that?"

"Hey, screwing the top brass, it's all in a day's work, right?"

Tseng glared at him. "She's _fifteen years old."_

"What?" exclaimed Reno. "No way. She looks about twelve."

Tseng's grip tightened ominously. "She's a _child, _Reno."

"Yeah? And? So?"

"Doesn't that bother you?"

"Should it? Seriously, Boss, am I missing something here? Because I don't get what the problem is. You're the ones who hired her, you and the Chief. What did you tell her the job was, babysitting?"

Tseng's fist was a blur as it smacked into Reno's face. Reno felt his lip split, tasted the blood in his mouth. "Fuck this," he muttered, "Let go of me," and with a sudden twist he wrench himself free and leapt sideways, beyond the reach of Tseng's arm. "What the hell was that for?" he demanded.

"Sometimes," Tseng ground out, "I could _kill_ you."

"Yeah, I got that part."

Tseng did not reply. Reno watched him take a few deep breaths as he struggled to get his temper under control. Then he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped it around his knuckles, which he'd scrapped on Reno's teeth. Reno touched a finger gingerly to his mouth. The split was deep, and the lip was swelling fast.

Tseng looked up. "You should get some ice on that," he said in a calmer voice. Putting a hand under Reno's elbow, he took him to the kitchen, and sat him down in a chair. Under the sink he found a plastic bag. He filled it with ice cubes, rolled it in a tea towel and handed it to Reno, who pressed it against his puffed mouth. At the sink Tseng washed his skinned knuckles with soap and water.

"We were all kids," said Reno thickly. "I was no older than she is. And you were what? Twelve? Thirteen?"

Tseng concentrated on lathering his hands. A little wrinkle had appeared between his brows. He said nothing, but Reno hadn't really expected an answer. Interpreting Tseng's silence as permission to speak, he pressed on, "Look, Boss, I don't know where Nats found that kid, but I can guess it wasn't a church social. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see what kind of life she's been leading. Whatever happens to her here, it's gotta be better than what she left behind. You know what I mean. And anyway, since when have we been hiring _nice_ girls? What use would _they_ be? So why are you carrying on like she's some kind of outraged innocent? I think maybe you're the one with the problem here, Tseng, not me. That kid's not a child, no matter what you say. Fuck it – look, when I was her age, I knew damn well what the Chief was offering me, and I jumped at the chance. _You_ sure as hell knew, and you were younger than she is. So what makes you think Aviva didn't understand what she was getting into when she signed up for this? That kid knew exactly what she was doing, believe me."

"And what was that?" asked Tseng, drying his hands methodically.

"Winning."

Tseng folded the towel and turned around. "Which would explain why she's in the washroom right now crying her eyes out."

Reno began to feel impatient. The Boss could be so _dense_ sometimes. "Not because of Heidegger. He was just a job to her. She's crying because of _you_."

"Me?"

"Yeah, you. And me. And all of us. It isn't what she did that made her ashamed, it was the way we looked at her when we realized what she'd done. Like we couldn't believe anyone could be so stupid, so - cheap. Like she made _us_ ashamed. She was trying to _impress_ you, Boss. Don't you get that? In the only way she knows, I guess." Suddenly Reno grinned. "She's friggin' impressed me, I can tell you. That girl must have one hell of a strong stomach."

"Don't trivialize this."

"I'm not. I mean it. That kid's got a lot of potential. She's smart, and she's tough, and she's determined. She worked out what she needed to do, and she did it, and she didn't let anything stand in her way. She got the job done. She gave one hundred perfect. And she _won_. So who gives a shit how old she is? She's one of us now. You should be patting her on the back, Boss, not – " he touched his swollen face – "Giving fat lips to your loyal staff."

Tseng's face was a study, frowning, yet smiling…. As much as he ever smiled, which was never more than a slight upward quirk of the corners of his mouth, and even that, it often seemed to Reno, given against his better judgement, as if he'd been told early on in life that a sense of humour was a weakness, and had taken the advice to heart.

"You shouldn't be talking," he said. "Put that ice back on."

Reno did, and was silent for a minute, replaying the conversation in his mind. Tseng would never admit it, but Reno knew he'd succeeded in persuading the Boss to see things his way. "So, what are you going to do now?" he asked from behind the towel.

"I'll have to let the Commander know."

Reno nodded. That was a given. "But Boss – tell him not to make her hurt _too_ much for this, huh? I know it sounds weird, but her motives were good ones."

"She has to learn, Reno. To be honest with you, I'm not even sure we can keep her after this. If Heidegger finds out she's one of our new recruits, he's bound to tell Director Scarlet, and she'll make sure it spreads through the building. If that happens, the Commander will have no choice but to let her go."

"Then we'll just have to make sure Corporal Beardface doesn't find out," said Reno. "I think we should be able to manage that. Don't you?"


	6. A Night Out in Midgar

**PART TWO, CHAPTER 6: A NIGHT OUT IN MIDGAR  
_[in which the Turks close ranks against Heidegger, Cissnei is perceptive, and the rookie redeems herself]_ **

Some unusually gentle questioning by Commander Veld persuaded Aviva to reveal that she did not think Director Heidegger knew who she was. She also admitted that she was the one who had disabled the security camera in his office through the access panel in the ventilation shaft. Having read Reno's list carefully, and seen that there was only one sure way to win, she had gone back to the locker bay on the 64th floor where, earlier that morning, she had exchanged her civvies for the suit. Here she had put her old clothes back on, then asked the cleaning lady for directions to Heidegger's office, and made her way up there. More detail than that she was reluctant to give. Veld saw nothing to be gained from insisting.

On the whole he was inclined towards Reno's view of the matter. Aviva had only done what a Turk should do, analyzing the problem at hand and solving it in the way that seemed to her the most efficient. Whether her actions could be described as strictly necessary was another matter - but she had thought they were. And if, in the many years to come of her employment with the Shinra Electric Company, she were never to be called upon to do anything worse, well, then the world would have changed into a place Veld no longer recognised.

Heidegger's actions the next morning seemed to confirm that he had no idea his little visitor had been a Turk. He came in person down to the 48th floor, when normally he would have sent a minion, and demanded Tseng hand over the previous day's tapes from his office's camera. "What for?" asked Tseng. Heidegger muttered something into his beard about intruders and fangirls and lax security. "As it happens," said Tseng, who was enjoying watching Heidegger squirm, "The camera malfunctioned yesterday, at about four o'clock. Reno's fixing it now." He could see that Heidegger did not believe him. Too bad.

While Heidegger was attempting to browbeat Tseng, Rude went up to Heidegger's office and replaced the ice cubes in the fridge's freezer tray with specially shaped blocks of blizzaga. These, taken in a glass of the whiskey Heidegger kept at the back of his bookshelves, would quickly blur his memory of recent events. As for Aviva, Veld thought, and Tseng agreed with him, that it would be better to keep her out of the way for a week. So they sent her off to Junon with Knox, where she could attend classes at the Academy in the morning, and help with preparations for the President's visit. Her official starting date was penciled onto Veld's calendar as the 20th February, when she would begin her duties in Midgar in the traditional way, on patrol in Sector Eight.

Having made these arrangements and sent the girl and Knox on their way, Veld closed his door and enjoyed the luxury of a few minutes alone. He was thinking, as he always did when dealing with his younger Turks, of his dead daughter, who would have been twenty-eight this year, and wondering what she would be doing now if she had lived to grow up in this world he had once worked to make safe for her.

Veld's grief for his lost child was not the same in substance, in quality, as the grief he and his Turks had felt at the death of Natalya. This grief would not pass with time. It never grew less, though he had grown used to living under its weight. He never forgot to remember her. Every moment of every day, her name was the song playing in his head.

* * *

_20th February, 2001. Reno was sitting alone at a pavement table outside a fashionable coffee shop on Loveless Avenue. Music and laughter, the tinkle of glasses and silver cutlery, filled the air. Although it was late, the entertainment district wouldn't be shutting down for another couple of hours. In the background, as always, hummed the steady muted throb of the reactors pumping the city's lifeblood._

He looked up and down the street. Nothing. He took out his PHS: the display read _02:05. _ It wasn't like Cissnei to be late. If she was planning to be a no-show, she would have called him. This rendezvous was her choice. They hadn't seen each other since she'd moved upstairs to work with Lazard, and he was missing her more than he would ever have let her know.

A woman came round the corner and caught his eye. Long legs made longer by five inch stilletoes, black mini-dress so tight it could have been spray-painted onto her curves, heavily made-up face, sparkly earrings, auburn hair twisted into a sexy mess of curls… His first thought was _hooker_. Then she smiled at him and waved, and he realized it was Cissnei.

"Nice duds," he said, pulling out a chair for her.

She kicked off the shoes. "I can hardly walk in these things."

"Standard SOLDIER issue?"

"I'm going to a party, so I can't stay long. Sorry I'm late, Reno."

"I bought you a coffee. But it's getting cold."

"That's OK. I don't want anything. I just wanted to see you." She reached out, took his hand, and squeezed it briefly, which was about as big a gesture of affection as you could hope to get from Cissnei. Just for a moment, though, it felt more as if she were holding on to him. He saw that the nails on her hands were long and fake and painted bright red.

"So," he said, "How's life on the 51st Floor?"

"Like being trapped inside a teenage boys' locker room, but otherwise, it's OK. Lazard's decent. They all seem to like him, because he's fair, and they respect him, because he's stricter than he looks. But he's not the Chief."

"So what's he got you doing?"

"Paperwork, mostly."

"Sounds like a blast. And how's your boyfriend?"

Cissnei gave a long-suffering sigh. "He's not my boyfriend."

"Who isn't?"

"Zack isn't."

"What makes you think I was talking about Zack Fair? Hah – gotcha!"

A motorbike came up the street. For a moment Reno's face was caught in the beam from its headlight. Cissnei leaned forward, lifting a hand to almost touch his mouth. "You're cut," she said, "What happened?"

"This? It's nearly healed."

"But how'd you get it?"

"It was nothing," said Reno, before deciding to admit, "Well - the boss and I had a bit of a fight."

"What? You and Tseng? Why, what about?"

"Why does it have to be about anything? Can't two guys just have a fight without needing a reason?"

"You, yes. But if Tseng got angry enough to hit you, you must have really pushed his buttons. So come on, spill. What were you fighting about?"

"You," said Reno, realizing, as the word left his mouth, that it was true.

"_Me_?"

"Yeah. You."

"What about me?"

"Well, Ciss, call me old-fashioned, but I just don't think we should be pimping each other round the building, is all. Since you ask."

Red lips drawn into a thin line, Cissnei sat back in her seat and gave him a long, thoughtful look.

She said, "It's never bothered you before."

"Yeah. Well."

"You've done it yourself. We all have."

He didn't much care for the way this conversation was going, so he took out a cigarette and lit it.

"Those things'll kill you," said Cissnei.

"If I live long enough to die of smoking, I'll call myself a lucky man."

"You're a fucking idiot, Reno, you know that?"

"Yeah."

"I can fight my own battles."

"I know."

"You don't know what my mission is with SOLDIER, so don't start imagining you do."

"Understood."

She looked at her watch, and bent down to put her shoes back on. "I really have to go – "

Abruptly he sat forward and grabbed her hand. "Ciss, there's a rave on tonight in the old warehouse across from the train station. Ditch the date and come with me."

"Aren't you working?"

"I'm on stand-by. I promise I'll only have one beer. C'mon, Ciss, you know you want to."

"Reno, listen – "

"Zack'll be there."

"I _know_," said Cissnei with heavy emphasis. "Where do you think I'm going? I'm _working, _Reno." She pulled her hand free and stood up, unsteady in the high heels. "And I'd really, really prefer it if you didn't come. See you soon, OK?"

She tottered away across the cobblestones. He watched her go, almost wishing she would fall so he could run and pick her up, help her. But she wouldn't thank him. She'd made that loud and clear.

A drink sounded good right now. A cold beer – two cold beers, and a warm nameless somebody to share them with. Somebody who didn't know what he did for a living and had never heard of Shinra. Yeah, right. Some deaf blind chick, maybe…

His PHS rang.

"Reno? It's Tseng. Are you anywhere near the Sector 8 Reactor? Good – listen, the new recruit's run into some anti-Shinra elements. We don't know how many, but more than she can handle. What weapons are you carrying?"

"Rod. Gun." Reno was already on his feet, running as he spoke. "Other gun. Boot knife. Wire."

"Materia?"

"A little Thundaga."

"It'll have to do. We think they're planning to blow up the reactor."

"Shit," exclaimed Reno. "What loony bin did these guys escape from?"

"We'll know soon. Rosalind's working on intel now. Whatever happens, don't let them get to the reactor. We're counting on you."

"Roger."

Reno snapped the phone shut and grinned. _Reno to the rescue once again!_ The way he was feeling tonight, a hard fight was an even sweeter prospect than a cold beer.

Soon he came across the first bodies: several of Heidegger's grunts with their necks snapped, and the warm corpse of an freshly-killed enemy soaked in blood from head to foot. It seemed to be wearing some kind of military fatigues. Impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman: the face was obscured with goggles, and a hat like a pie had been pulled down around the ears, completely covering the hair. He ran on, passing more bodies and watching where he put his feet. The cobbles were slippery with blood. Obviously Aviva wasn't the tidy sort.

He found her at the entrance to the reactor. The door had been blown open, and six of the enemy were closing in on her. Three corpses lay on the ground with knives in their necks. Aviva stood empty handed, but dauntless.

"Hey rookie," he called, "Didn't anyone ever teach you that knives make crappy ranged weapons? Here, catch – "

He tossed her a ball of thundaga. She leapt into the air, twisting like an acrobat to catch it underhand, while the enemy, thrown off their stride by this abrupt turn of events, gawped open-mouthed. Still in mid-air she cast the materia: there was a flash and a roar and three of them lay dead as she landed with her feet neatly together. Reno swiftly eliminated the other three with his rod.

"Nice moves, rookie."

She was breathless and sweating and her eyes were fiercely grateful. "Thank you, sir. I thought I was dead there for a minute."

_Sir! She'd called him "sir"! Suck on that, Cissnei!_

He was feeling better already.

"How many got inside?" he asked her.

"I don't know, sir. A few."

Three more of the enemy came running round the corner. "You won't get away with this," they cried. "Death to the Shinra!"

"Yeah," said Reno. "That's original. Listen, kid, I'll hold these guys off. You go take care of the ones inside. The important thing is to protect the reactor." He shot a bolt of electricity at the enemy, forcing them back. "If the reactor blows, everyone on this plate goes with it, and everyone underneath. Understand? Here, take this -" he slipped his remaining materia into her pocket – "And these – " he thrust the two guns at her. "Now hurry!"

"Yes, sir! I won't let you down, sir!"

The darkness inside the doorway swallowed her up. Reno turned to deal with the enemy.

He wanted to take at least one of them alive for questioning, but they refused to yield. They fought like men possessed, forcing him to kill all three of them. It was only once they were dead that he was able to stand still long enough to take a good look at them. Who were they? Why were they doing this? Why were they throwing their lives away? And why were they all wearing blue goggles? It couldn't be easy to see through those things in Midgar's murky light. Was there something wrong with their eyes?

Mako sprang to mind. Could they possibly be some of the SOLDIERs who had deserted in Wutai the previous year? Was Genesis the one behind this attack? No, that made no sense – If they'd been SOLDIERs, he, Reno, wouldn't still be standing here without a scratch on him. Unless maybe they were drugged, or something…

"Impressive," said an unfamiliar voice.

Reno looked up. Just beyond the range of his EMR stood a man different from the others yet clearly one of them – their leader, probably. He was bare-faced, brown-eyed, dressed in a grey shirt and trousers, with a bandolier across his chest. A camoflage bandana held back his scruffy black hair. He looked young, but rough. He did not appear to be armed.

"Just what I would have expected from you – Reno, the fastest of the Turks," he said.

Reno stood up, holding his rod behind his back. Stealthily he felt with his thumb for the trigger. Click. Nothing._ Shit._ He was out of juice, and he'd given the last of his materia to the rookie.

This guy was big. Big and strong. Big and strong and slow, hopefully.

"You seem to know me," said Reno. "Have we met?"

The big guy chuckled. Reno felt a little unnerved. Did he not care, _at all_, that his men lay dead all around him?

The big guy said, "It's only common sense to know your enemy. But you don't know me. You may – briefly – live to regret that. Your speed will be no match for my strength."

"You think so, do you?" said Reno, stalling for time and trying to think of a plan. He still had his boot knife. If the guy had no ranged weapons, he might be able to nip inside his guard and take him before he had time to react. On the other hand, if the guy produced a gun, he was probably stuffed. Momentarily he considered running away, but knew he couldn't: Aviva already had enough on her hands. He had to hold this guy here and hope that no more came after him. "We won't know for sure until we test that out, will we?"

"Interesting," said the big guy. "Very well, I accept your challenge. Let's see the true strength of the Turks."

To an onlooker, the battle that followed might have looked like nothing more than Reno going round in circles. The big guy _was_ slow, but he was level-headed. As Reno darted and feinted, seeking an opening, the big guy shifted on the spot, always keeping Reno straight in front. Every time Reno saw an opening and tried to close in, his move was blocked.

He began to get the distinct impression that he was being played with. This irritated him a little, until he understood its significance. If the big guy was in no hurry, that meant he didn't know there was another Turk inside the reactor – which meant he was trying to keep Reno busy here so that his own men would have time to plant their bomb. Well, two could play at that game. If there was one thing Reno was good at, it was running rings around self-righteous bastards.

Still and all, he'd be quite happy if the reinforcements arrived soon.

"You see," said the big guy, "You boastful Turks are nothing without your toys and your drugs and your magic. I stand before you as the Planet made me, my bare hands my only defense, and you cannot touch me."

"Oh man," said Reno, "Why do I always have to get the crazy ones?"

That seemed to strike a nerve. The big guy scowled and said angrily, "You're mocking me now, Shinra scum, but soon you'll be laughing on the other side of your face."

"When you rearrange my features – yeah, I get it."

_Tseng, a little help here!_

"By the time I'm finished with you, you'll be on your knees begging for mercy just like the one we killed up in Icicle Inn."

Reno skidded to a halt.

His heart was pounding. A red film seemed to have covered his field of vision.

"That was _you?"_

The big guy had been right about one thing: Reno wasn't laughing any more.

"She mocked us too," said his enemy. "She called us fools and said we were deluded. But she was the one who realized her mistake in the end."

"You're lying," said Reno. "Turks don't beg."  
He launched himself like a lightning bolt, straight onto the big guy's left fist.

The other fist rammed into his gut. Reno staggered and fell. Next moment he felt himself being picked up off the ground by his hair and slammed into the wall. Before he had time to breathe, it happened again, and again; his head was about to be cracked open like a boiled egg -

"Sir!" a girl's voice rang out. "I've secured the reactor and – "

The big guy released him. He fell to the ground in a heap, face down.

"Run, rookie," he gasped. "This guy's trouble – "

The big guy's boot came down on his neck. He fell into peaceful oblivion…

.

… and came up again though a sea of silver needles, breaking the surface to suck in a lungful of air.

The girl was shaking him frantically. "Sir? Are you all right, sir?"

"What happened?" He tried to sit up, but his arms and legs wouldn't cooperate.

"I used one of your Cures, sir. It's OK, they've gone. The reactor's safe."

"How long have I been out?"

"Not long. Maybe ten minutes. That big guy was tough, sir. He dodged all my knives and knocked me down and I was sure I was a goner, but then one of the others came in and said they were going to Junon to regroup, and the big guy told this other guy to finish us off, and he left, and I killed the other one, sir."

She pointed to a corpse not far away, lying spreadeagled on the cobbles with a knife sticking out of its eye.

"Nice work," said Reno. "You saved my life, rookie."

"That makes us even then, sir."

He grinned. A little hesitantly at first, she smiled back. She had an appealing face, he realized: not pretty, perhaps, but intelligent and eager.

The numbness had faded to a tingling in his ears and fingertips. "I'd better call the Boss," said Reno, taking out his phone and beginning to dial. "Let him know what's happened."

"The boss? Oh, you mean Mr Tseng?"

"Yeah," laughed Reno. "That's who I mean. Hullo, is that Mr Tseng speaking? It's me, Reno. No, I did not get knocked on the head. I was just being polite, OK? Yes, she did. She was good. The sector's secure. Apparently they've withdrawn to regroup in Junon. Yes, I know the President is there. No, not good. What? AVALANCHE? What the fuck is that supposed to stand for? OK, whatever. Listen Boss, you need to know this. They're the ones who got Nats. I met their leader –"

"Shears," said Aviva. "That one I killed called him Shears."

"Apparently his name is Shears. No, we had a cup of tea together, what do you think? Yes, right away. Understood. Two more pistols and a crate of materia. Twenty minutes. Roger."

He turned to Aviva. "Well, no rest for the wicked. C'mon, kid. You and me are going to Junon."


	7. A Day's Work in Junon

Back at the office, Aviva quickly changed into something less bloodstained. The helicopter was waiting on the pad, rotors turning. Reno took the controls. One of the army dudes asked if he could sit in the co-pilot's seat. "I've never been in a helicopter before," he said.

Reno no longer bothered asking Heidegger's grunts for their names. They all looked the same and they all died with such regularity that it wasn't worth getting to know them. But this one seemed like a nice kid. With his eager blue eyes, spiky blond hair, and soft cheeks innocent of a razor's touch, he couldn't be any older than Aviva.

"Help yourself," said Reno. "Just don't touch anything."

The flight south to Junon took a little over an hour. Halfway there the grunt started to feel airsick; Reno told him to upchuck, if he had to, in his helmet. Aviva catnapped, but woke when the sun came up to flood sea and coast with a rosy gold light. The landscape was breathtakingly bleak.

"There it is!" Aviva pointed, shouting over the roar of the engines.

Burning bronze in the dawn sunshine: Junon, the military-industrial complex at the heart of Shinra's empire, a stepped city riveted to the barren walls of the sea cliff and dominated by the vast concrete barrel of the mako cannon thrusting out over the ocean waves.

"Why is it such a desert?" shouted the grunt.

"It's the pollution from the underwater reactor!" shouted Aviva. "The old town's nice, though! If you get time you should check it out! I could show you around! I was here all last week," she explained, smiling. The grunt smiled back, shyly, and a little queasily.

"Cute," was Reno's dry comment.

He brought the helicopter in to land at the airport on the top of the town; they all disembarked, and made their way down through the dawn streets to the hotel where the President was staying. Here Reno made a quick call to Veld to confirm their arrival.

"The President's eating breakfast and doesn't want to be disturbed," said Veld. "Let's see. It's half past seven. Everything's looking peaceful right now. The President has an inspection of cadets to make at ten and a public broadcast at two-thirty. You might as well go and get something to eat. You won't have another chance."

"Yes!" Aviva punched the air. "I love hotel buffets!"

If any of them had hoped that the threatened attack would fail to materalise, those hopes were dashed soon after breakfast, when a gun battle erupted outside the hotel. Reno and Aviva ran to the presidential suite and found the old man more furious than frightened.

"Who the hell do these people think they are?" he roared. "If they think they're going to stop me they've got another think coming."

"Maybe you should call Commander Veld, sir?" suggested Reno.

"Bugger Veld! He's as fussy as a mother hen. I'm confident you two can protect me."

A guard came running into the room. "Mr. President, sir, they're in – "

A fireball struck him from behind like an exploding star. Reno, Aviva, and the President threw up their hands to shield their eyes. When they were able to look again, there was nothing to be seen but scorch marks on the expensive purple carpet

"What the blazes was that?" exclaimed the President. "Was that – _our_ materia?"

"Ours now," said a khaki-clad, goggle-wearing enemy as he walked into the room, gun leveled at the Old Man's heart. "I've found you, Mister President."

"As if I'd let you!" cried Aviva. Her knives flashed, and the man went down.

The President's phone rang. It was Veld. They argued. Eventually Aviva was sent to sweep the hotel while Reno was ordered to stay and guard the President. But the Old Man was impatient. He tapped his foot and read some papers and watched the clock and made some irritable phone calls, and finally said, "That's it, Reno. I'm running behind schedule and there are many things that must be done today. Let's go."

On the way they ran into Aviva. She reported the hotel clean. Reno wanted to wait for an armoured car but the Old Man was having none of it. They headed out into the streets with an entourage of Heidegger's infantrymen.

"Remember this, Mr President!" cried a voice from above. A sudden explosion sent Reno flying backwards.

He staggered to his feet, wiping the dust from his eyes, and looked around, relieved to see Aviva's little upright figure standing on guard in front of the Old Man, her pistol aimed at a top floor window of the hotel. All the infantrymen seemed to be safe too, amazingly. But their party was now divided. The entire width of the road had been torn asunder, peeling away the asphalt skin to reveal the steel skeleton of the machine gun emplacements beneath. There was no way across. Aviva, the President, and most of the grunts were on the far side of the chasm, while Reno, together with two more infantrymen, had been left stranded on the other.

"Yo rookie!" he called. "You take good care of the President. I'll sort out that fucker with the bomb, and then catch you up another way."

"Roger!" shouted Aviva.

Some kills were more personally satisfying than others. The bomb had been a close thing, so when Reno trapped the bomber in the hotel's stairwell, the payback felt sweet. From the stairwell he led the grunts up and over the rooftops and so to the service lift that took them to the military academy. He made his way to the auditorium and found the President standing at the podium, Shinra's scarlet and purple banners unfurled on either side, while the cadets marched past, eyes right, saluting proudly.

Aviva looked hot and dirty, but very pleased with herself. "I got eight of them, sir," she boasted. "And the guards got six more. I used the materia like you showed me."

Reno lit a cigarette. To himself he thought, _that's got to be at least thirty we've killed so far. How many more are there? How big is this group?_

To Aviva he said, "Nice work, kid."

Blushing, she grinned from ear to ear.

When the inspection was over, Veld called the President again. The upshot of this argument was that the President agreed to give his broadcast from the company's Junon branch office, where sophisticated security systems could be brought into play if AVALANCHE attacked again. Why they couldn't all just leave, fly back to Midgar, and make the broadcast from somewhere comparatively safe, Reno didn't know, but he wasn't the one calling the shots.

Once again they split up. Aviva and half the grunts went ahead with the President; Reno and the rest of the soldiers brought up the rear, ready to take any trouble from behind. The streets were quiet – eerily so, like a ghost town. The citizens must have taken cover. Reno made himself invisible in the shadow of a doorway and watched Aviva escort the President inside the branch office. For ten minutes he waited, but nothing happened and no enemies appeared, so he followed them in. The foyer was empty, except for two guards.

"Where is everybody?" asked Reno.

"We sent them to the basement for safety. We have a message from your Director. He said you and the other Turk were to secure the building. We will be guarding the President."

"Is that right?" said Reno. "Then why didn't he call _me_?"

One blast from the EMR took care of both of them. "Guard the doors," he shouted to the grunts, before running up the stairs three at a time to the press office. Here three more AVALANCHE operatives disguised as Shinra infantrymen lay dead on the blue-tiled floor. They had been shot in the back, and Aviva's pistol was hot in her hand. She wasn't looking pleased with herself any more.

"Oldest trick in the book, rookie," he told her.

"I'm getting pretty damn sick of this!" the Old Man roared. "What the hell is Veld doing? Clear those bodies away, Reno, and let's get the cameras set up! Nothing must delay my broadcast. The public's faith in us is our single biggest asset."

"I should be getting double time for this," Reno muttered to himself.

Aviva, overhearing him, giggled.

.

By two-thirty-five a kind of peace had descended on Junon. The AVALANCHE threat appeared to have been averted. Perhaps they were all now dead. The office workers had returned to their stations, the broadcast equipment was up and running, the cameras were rolling, and the Old Man's speech was going well.

-_The Junon army is the people's army. They exist to serve and protect you all -_

"Looks like everything's going to be OK," said Reno to Aviva.

"That's a relief – "

The world plunged into sudden night.

"Power outage!" someone shouted.

Reno felt small fingers brushing the back of his hand.

"Is that you, sir?" whispered Aviva.

Cell phones were flipped open and held up; glowing squares of light floated in the darkness.

"Reno!" bellowed the Old Man. "What the blue blazes just happened? Can't you people do anything right? I might as well be paying monkeys! Monkeys in suits! Reno? Are you there? Get Veld on the phone! Get Veld for me _now_!"

The phone rang. It was Veld. He ordered Aviva to get down to the basement, find the problem, and restore the power, while Reno stayed to guard the President. It wasn't long before the lights were back on.

"She's good," said the Old Man. He dismissed the other workers, then turned to Reno and said, "Let's go."

"Go?" exclaimed Reno.

"My speech is ruined. There's no sense in hanging around here. I have business waiting for me back in Midgar and – now what?"

A young man stood in the entrance to the press room, holding a gun in his hand. He was of middle height and slim build, with delicate features, thin lips, and thick straight brown hair pulled back from a high forehead. His skin was very pale. He wore a pair of rimless spectacles; the light glinted on the glass, making it impossible to see his eyes clearly.

He took a step forward and said, "It seems the power was restored faster than we anticipated. But no matter. We have already succeeded in preventing President Shinra from inspiring the masses with his heart-warming speech."

"AVALANCHE?" said Reno.

The young man bowed. "You know our name. I am honoured." He took another step forward.

"Don't come any closer to the President," said Reno, moving to put himself between the stranger and the Old Man.

"Just kill him!" shouted the President.

But Reno did not want to kill him. They needed information; they needed to capture somebody alive, and this guy, with his geeky glasses and his soft hands and his high-collared grey coat, was clearly no ordinary operative. If Reno could keep him here talking until Aviva got back, they should be able to take him prisoner without risking the President in a battle.

"Tsk, tsk," said the young man. "There's no need to be so uncivilized. I don't believe we've met in person before, Mr President, but of course I'd know you anywhere. My name is Fuhito."

"Who gives a shit?" snarled the President. "Reno, what are you waiting for? Kill him!"

"Gee, I dunno," said Reno, "He looks pretty tough to me."

"I'll take that in the spirit in which it was intended," said Fuhito. "I wish I could prolong this interesting conversation, but unfortunately I have no time to dilly-dally. This, I am sorry to say, is where we must part – "

Aviva appeared in the doorway behind him, out of breath from running, her knuckles bristling with knives.

"Good timing!" said Reno. "Try to capture him alive; I'm taking the President somewhere safe."

"You can count on me, sir!"

Reno was beginning to be impressed by how much she was enjoying this.

The President had meanwhile flipped a switch under the desk that opened the secret door. He went through it, and Reno, rod in hand, followed. They made their way back to the hotel without any trouble. When they walked into the presidential suite, the large monitor on the wall was ringing. "Answer it," said the President. Reno pressed the button. Tiny squares of colours swarmed the screen, resolving into Rufus Shinra's pixilated features.

All the harshness and impatience, and some of the strength, went out of old Shinra's face. His eyes grew tender. He made a gesture as if he would have liked to reach out and touch that gigantic, perfect face.

"It looks like you're having some trouble, old man," said Rufus. "I've been watching the CCTV. Are you all right?"

"Rufus," said the Old Man gently, "It's been a while since I heard from you."

"I've been busy," said Rufus. "Business. You know how it is. Anyway… Hullo, Reno. Long time no see." _And if I never see you again_, his sullen tone added, _it'll be too soon._

The kid sure knew how to bear a grudge, thought Reno, looking up at those huge, baleful blue eyes. Just like his old man. Once they got their teeth into something, they never let go.

Rufus went on, "I've been watching your new Turk show off her moves. She's not bad. What's her name?"

"Aviva."

"I'll remember that. Tell her that I look forward to seeing her in action again sometime soon. Ah – you've got incoming. I'd better get off the line."

The face of the President's son dissolved and was replaced by that of Commander Veld.

"Sir, we have an emergency - "

_No shit_, thought Reno, _so what's this day been up till now?_

" - AVALANCHE have seized the mako cannon and are redirecting it at Midgar."

The old man went white with rage. "What?" he bellowed. "How could you have let this happen, you incompetent fool?"

"We are taking steps to – "

"No, Veld, you listen to me. My son's in Midgar. We are not going to let those terrorists destroy my city. I want you to up the security level from A to S. Send one of your people to take back the control room – send that girl, she's closest. Reno, get all the infantrymen you can find and get up to the cannon. There's no time to waste. You have to recapture it, no matter what. Do you understand?

"Understood," replied Reno.

Then he did what he did best – he ran.

.

It was a hard fight, the hardest of his life, and the most hopeless. The enemy just kept coming. Every time he killed one, two more, it seemed, ran in to take their place. The four infantrymen he had picked up in the hotel lobby were already dead – dead like the entire city of Midgar was going to be as soon as AVALANCHE unleashed the cannon. He would never reach it in time. He shot the enemy with his gun until the bullets ran out, and fried them with his rod until the materia was drained, and then he fought them with his fists and his feet and his teeth, and all the time he knew he was going to fail. He was going to die, here on the streets of Junon, and Cissnei and Rude were going to die there in Midgar, and the Chief was going to die, probably with his phone clamped to his ear listening to Tseng dying at the other end. The Board was going to die; Rufus Shinra was going to die; the Company was going to crumble and the world fall into chaos, and he, Reno, was doing everything he could, but could do nothing to stop it.

_ At least if I die first, _he thought, _I can always hope some miracle happened to save them._

It was at this point he realized that the number of his attackers was thinning. He was still killing them, but no fresh ones were coming to replace the fallen.

At least half an hour must have passed since he left the hotel. If they were going to fire the cannon – if they were able to fire the cannon – why hadn't they done so?

They must have failed.

His attackers knew that they had failed: they were fighting without conviction now. One by one, they turned to flee.

Soon, no enemy remained.

The sun was setting. Long shadows lay across the road; red and black clouds streaked the violet sky. Reno looked back at the line of corpses marking the path he had tried to take from the hotel to the cannon. _That's all of them_, he thought. _The only one left – is me. _

From out of the evening sky he heard a familiar whump-whump. In a moment the helicopter was hovering above him, and he saw Rude leaning out the open door, throwing down a rope ladder.

Time to go home.

.

As soon as he was inside the helicopter, Reno's phone rang. It was Tseng, letting him know that the President had been shot but was safe and out of danger, that the miracle had been Sephiroth, and that Aviva was down on the docks, injured and waiting to be collected.

The dock looked as if it had been struck by an earthquake. Rude could see no place to land among the rubble. Reno went down the ladder and found Aviva huddled against an iron buttress, clutching a wound on her arm. Blood was seeping between her fingers.

"Hey kid, you OK?"

Aviva nodded.

"Did Sephiroth do this?"

"He wrecked the dock," she said, eyes screwed shut against the pain. "But he saved me."

"Come on." Reno picked her up and put her over his shoulder. Her body felt like the cat's, all hard muscle and sinew, yet soft and pliable. He didn't have the strength left to carry her up the ladder (she weighed more than she looked) so he held on, and Rude pulled them both in.

They laid her down on an army blanket. Rude handed them headsets and took out his materia case, giving one little green sphere to Reno, who swallowed it gratefully and then leaned back and closed his eyes, and offering another to Aviva. She held it in her palm and looked at it closely.

"You've lost a lot of blood," said Rude. "Take it."

"Is it OK to take so much? I gave Mr Reno a big dose this morning."

A smile touched Rude's lips. "It's how we survive."

"Warn her," said Reno, still with his eyes closed.

"First it hurts," said Rude. "Then it feels good."

Aviva closed her fist round the green materia. With a swift, decisive gesture she shoved it into her mouth and gulped it down. "I don't feel anything – oh. Um. Ouch. It's like pins and needles – "

Reno lit a cigarette.

"Do you have to smoke in the chopper?" asked Rude.

"Yes, I do. By the way, partner, who's flying her right now?"

Aviva had begun to whimper.

"It's on auto-hover." Taking the hint, Rude slid himself into the pilot's seat, turned off the hover switch, and wheeled the helicopter up and away to the left, into the darkening sky. He craned his neck to speak to Reno. "Let me know when you feel like taking over."

"Later, maybe."

Aviva was gasping for breath. Reno observed her dispassionately. In a moment, when the refined mako hit her heart, she would know the reason for the pain.

Her whole body stiffened. She threw her head back and cried out loud.

Then she sat up, taking deep shuddering breaths. She held out her hands and examined them slowly, turning palm to back to palm. She patted down her limbs, as if to make sure everything was in place. When she turned her face to Reno, her eyes were sparkling.

"That was just… awesome. I feel amazing. My wound's completely healed, look, sir –" She rolled up her sleeve to show him a taut, smooth biceps.

"Aviva," said Reno, "What happened on the dock?"

It took her a little time to tell the story: in her heightened state the words poured out as a jumbled torrent. Eventually, Reno managed to get the gist. She'd failed to capture Fuhito, who had slipped past her guard, and she'd been in hot pursuit when the Commander called her with orders to get down to the cannon's detonator and disarm it before it fired. It had been a race against time: she'd had to fight her way past not only the AVALANCHE operatives in her path, but also Shinra's own security robots, programmed at S-level to kill anything that moved. Like Reno, she had struggled on in the growing certainty that she would arrive too late – but when she reached the outer chamber of the control room, she found it heaped with the bodies of dead AVALANCHE operatives who had been, quite literally, hacked into pieces and thrown about with such force that blood was dripping from the ceiling. Slash marks scored the walls. Seeing this, she had felt, for the first time in that whole long day, truly afraid.

But then the Commander had called her, and thanked her for disarming the detonator. She knew she hadn't. So who had?

That was when the woman had come in. Tall, broad-shouldered, with shaggy short brown hair, she wore a cape over her khaki fatigues and was armed with a sword. Furiously she threw herself at Aviva, demanding vengeance for her dead comrades. She was strong and quick, flicking Aviva's knives aside with the flat of her blade. The materia Aviva cast seemed to have no effect on her. Wounded, and realizing that if she stayed she would certainly be killed, Aviva had fled through a side door and found herself out on the dock with nowhere to run. The woman came after her, sword raised. That was when Sephiroth appeared.

"He didn't kill her?" asked Rude, who had been listening.

"Maybe he didn't try very hard," said Aviva. "She blocked his attack and held his blade and he seemed, like, impressed. He asked her name and she said it was Elfe and she was AVALANCHE's leader. And then she said – what was it she said? – she said 'By retreating today we remain victorious', and she ran off so fast I didn't really see where she went, and he let her go, I guess. And then he spoke to me and he said that he sensed an unusual strength in her and that we were not to take her lightly. Oh my god," she exclaimed, the realization only now fully dawning on her, "_He_ spoke to me. Sephiroth spoke to _me_."

"So this woman is their leader?" said Reno. "Not Shears?"  
"I knew about the silver hair, of course, everybody knows about that," Aviva burbled, "But I would never have guessed his eyelashes were so long and so dark."

"A woman who's a match for Sephiroth," mused Rude.

"Did she say anything else?" Reno pressed her. "Did she say anything about who they are, or what they want, or why they're doing this?"

"She said to _him_ that they were fighting for a reason – she said it like she didn't think we had a reason. But I don't think that's true, sir, do you? I think we had plenty of reasons to fight today. I think we have lots of good reasons."

"Money's always a good reason," Reno agreed.

"But I think Shinra is worth fighting for. Don't you, sir?"

"You're getting a bit of a mistaken impression, kid. Today was kinda unusual. We don't fight entire armies single handed on a daily basis."

"But you haven't answered my question." Aviva leaned forward. The pupils of her eyes were widely dilated. "What do you fight for?"

"I told you. It's my job."

"There's a million jobs in this world. Why this one?"

"Who else would hire him?" Rude threw back from the pilot's seat.

"You know what?" said Aviva. "Today for the first time ever in my life I felt like I was doing something worthwhile. Like I was making a difference. Like it mattered whether I succeeded or failed. I helped save lives today. I think that's worth fighting for. " She took a gulp of air and rushed on, "So many people die who don't deserve to. My family was killed in the Wutai war. I barely even remember them. And my mother, she lost her parents in the Great Continental War. I'm not looking for your pity," she said fiercely. "I know my story is no different from a million other people. But we can change things. Shinra has the power to change things. Nobody else has ever had that kind of power. I think we really have a chance to bring peace to the world for the first time in history. I really, really believe that. And I know you do too or you wouldn't be here."

Reno and Rude exchanged glances.

"Aviva, Turks don't discuss these things," said Rude.

"Why not?"

"Because whatever you believe, you still have to do your job."

"Yeah kid," said Reno, "If you don't watch out, the President will have you writing his speeches next."

Aviva's face scrunched up and her fists clenched. If she had had any knives left, thought Reno, she might have thrown one at him. Turning her back on the two men, she lay down on the blanket. It would be good if she could fall asleep. The materia seemed to have given her quite a buzz. Once again Rude offered Reno the controls, but Reno declined: the long day was beginning to catch up with him. He leaned his head against one of the helicopter's metal ribs, and stared through the window at the blue-green glow of Midgar, coming steadily closer.

Aviva began humming.

"Man," said Rude, "She's really flying."

"You gave her too much. She's so small, half a dose would have been enough."

She said dreamily, "Mr Reno, can I ask you something?"

"You don't need to keep calling me Mr Reno. Or _sir_. The Chief is _sir. _Tseng's _sir._ But me and Rude, we're your partners."

"OK. Partner. Can I ask you something? I've been wondering all day. Is your hair real?"

Rude burst out laughing.

"Of course it's real," said Reno indignantly. "I grow it myself."

"You don't dye it?"

"No! It's always been this colour. Who said I dyed it?"

Rude was snorting, choking, on his laughter.

"It's so…. _red,_" she sighed. "Can I touch it?"

"Rude!"

"Hey, man, it's only the materia talking. Be nice. It's her first day, and she's been through a lot."

"Well, all right, then," said Reno to Aviva. "Just be careful you don't mess it. And don't pull."

He bent his head to her waiting hand. Her touch was so light he could barely feel it.

"It's soft," she murmured. "I thought it would be prickly. It's so soft."

She stroked his hair backwards, like petting an animal. When her fingertips touched his scalp, his skin purred. Against the nape of his neck her resting hand was small and cool and heavy. Little shivers began to run down his spine. Time to stop. He pulled away, sitting back on his heels.

Her hand fell to her side. She was asleep.


	8. Lies and Other Crimes

**CHAPTER EIGHT: LIES AND OTHER CRIMES  
[in which a materia thief is captured, Aviva indulges in some comfort eating, and Rufus makes Tseng's life difficult]**

_Extracts from the minutes of the Shinra Electric Company Board of Directors meeting_

_Midgar, 21st February 2001. 4.00 pm._

_Present: President Shinra, Vice-President Rufus, Palmer, Heidegger, Scarlett, Lazard, Tuesti, Hojo, Veld_

… _Item 2, the new threat posed by the group known as AVALANCHE_

_Item 2.1_

_- Veld presented a report on events of the 20__th__ February summarizing attacks made by AVALANCHE on Midgar and Junon, and distributed copies of existing intelligence on AVALANCHE_

_- President expressed dissatisfaction with performance of Department of Administrative Research in handling of threat posed by AVALANCHE_

_- Lazard Deusericus called for a vote of thanks to be made to the Turk Reno and novice Turk Aviva for actions above and beyond the call of duty. President vetoed vote._

_- Scarlett stated for the record that it was not the business of Turks to fight hostile armed forces, but to identify and forestall threats to the company's intellectual property_

_- Heidegger proposed responsibility for AVALANCHE be transferred to Department of Public Safety Maintenance; Scarlett seconded motion. Motion put to the vote and defeated 6:2. President rejected motion._

_- Vice-President Rufus proposed responsibility for AVALANCHE be transferred to SOLDIER with commensurate budgetary adjustments. V-P further proposed intensification of SOLDIER recruitment program, to be conducted jointly by SOLDIER and Department of Administrative Research. President seconded motion. Motion carried nem con. President accepted motion._

_Item 2.2_

_- Professor Hojo proposed Turks make it their priority to prevent any further theft of materia or other property from company buildings. Motion seconded by Reeve Tuesti. Motion passed nem con. President accepted motion._

_There being no other business, the meeting closed at 4.45 pm._

_._

The next morning the Turks gathered in the briefing room, waiting for Tseng to give them their day's assignments. In the middle of the long ebony table the cat lay sprawled luxuriously on its side, paws kneading, purr rumbling, while Aviva gently tickled its white belly.

"You doing anything tonight, kid?" Reno asked her.

"Me?" Aviva stammered. "No – I don't think so – no, sir…."

"Would you like to go for a drink? You were so out of it when we got back from Junon, we forgot to drink a toast to your first mission. Kind of a departmental tradition. D'you want to go tonight?"

Her cheeks had turned a pretty shade of pink. "Oh…yes… yes, I would, sir. I'd like that."

"OK. Rude's up for it too, and I'm sure the others will come. Hey, guys, who's coming to the Goblins tonight to celebrate Viva's first mission?"

He was looking around the table, counting the raised hands, and so did not see her shining eyes turn dull with disappointment.

.

_From Tseng's briefing notebook, dated 22nd February 2001_

- **Rude, Reno, Mink** – SOLDIER recruitment.

1. Candidate profile 2. Itinerary 3. Advance on expenses 4. Ship? Helicopter?

-** Rosalind** – AVALANCHE leadership invstg. 'Fuhito'/'Shears' – educational records? 'Elfe' – medical records? Mako exposure?

- **Cavour** – classified materia theft intel/surv

suspects a) Dr Maria Halberstand S-DSR/F/292 C

b) Dr Yared Seega S-DSR/M/154 B

c) Dr Lane Wilbraham S-SOLDIER/M/54 B

NB photos

- **Mozo** – VP to Icicle Inn snowboarding

- **Aviva** – sector 8

- **Knox** – Fort Condor; monsters – Genesis? Further information needed:  Cissnei

- **Cissnei** – cont.

- **Self** 1) ID pirates slums sector 3. 2) AVALANCHE follow up Cosmo Canyon link 3) call Charlie 4) Don Corneo 5) archives – Modeoheim 6) Party 8 pm w/Pres. NB New gloves

.

"So…" said Rude, "Looks like I'm stuck with you again, Reno."

Reno laughed. "What are you saying? Admit it, you'd rather work with me than anyone else."

Rude made a gruff noise in his throat that could have been a _yes. _"With you the work is never…. routine."

"You got that right, partner."

* * *

_PHS transcript 8__th__ March 2001, 13.37 _

_Cavour: Dr Wilbraham is the one, boss. He met his contact in the Sector 6 playground fifteen minutes ago and handed something over, something heavy in a bag. I took the photos like you said. Now he's on his way to the train station. I think he's heading back to the office. I'm following the contact._

_Tseng: Good work. Send me the photos. I'll intercept Wilbraham. Where's the contact going now? _

_Cavour: Into Wall Market. _

_Tseng: Your orders are to take him alive. But be discrete._

_Cavour: Roger, sir. Cavour out._

_._

Form /REP:6A

SHINRA ELECTRIC COMPANY

Department of Administrative Research

Mission Report

Mission to: Sector 6 slums

Mission Objective: Capture AVALANCHE operative and recover classified materia

Agents: Cavour

Mission Date: March 8th 2001

Report filed by: Cavour, ID S-DAR/M/72.R

Mission status: partially accomplished

Tailed target from Sector 6 playground into market. Target realized he was being followed. Target ran. Pursued target for approximately five minutes. Target took a kid hostage and said he'd kill the kid if I didn't back off. I shot the target through the head around 14.15. Kid was unharmed. Parents very happy. Bag found at scene, contained materia. Returned with materia to HQ at 15.05

Signed: Cavour Date: 8/3/01

.

_Crumpled scraps in a wastepaper bin in the Turks' offices, 8__th__ March 2001_

_- It's sOOO quiet hear without him_

_- __Reno_

_- __Mrs Reno _

_- __Mrs Aviva Reno_

___-__ Youre insane. He has tons of girlfreinds according to Rosalind . Why would he even look at u? He calls u a kid. [crossed out]__If he knew[crossed out]__ Hes only nice to u because hes nice to evreyone. If Mr Veld could read my mind hed kill me. Why isn't their a materia for this feeling? But I don't want it to go away._

.

At 16.00 a small fire broke out in a wastepaper bin that had been carried into the Turk's kitchen. At 16.02 Aviva doused the fire with a coffee mug of water. She took a bar of chocolate from the refrigerator and ate it sadly, sitting cross-legged on the floor.

.

Dr Wilbraham, materia thief, entered the lift on the mezzanine floor. It was crowded. He turned to watch the numbers light up as they rose smoothly through the building. Floor 45, Floor 46, Floor 47 –

A hand closed around his arm.

"Don't make a scene," said Tseng in his ear.

- Floor 48.

"Our stop," said Tseng.

Wilbraham managed to stay brave long enough to step from the lift, but when the doors closed and the other people, the ordinary Shinra employees, the innocent, were carried away from him back into the life he already knew he had lost, his legs gave way and Tseng had to drag him to the interrogation room.

"Sit," he said, throwing Wilbraham onto a chair.

"What are you going to do to me?" Wilbraham's voice came out as a strangled whisper.

"Do you have family in Midgar, Dr Wilbraham?"  
"What? Yes – my parents. My brother."

"Last month a terrorist organization called AVALANCHE temporarily seized the mako cannon at Junon and tried to turn it on Midgar. You're a scientist, Dr Wilbraham. I don't need to tell you what would have happened to your parents and your brother and everyone else in this city if they had succeeded. We also discovered that they are in possession of experimental weapons grade materia from our laboratories. The person who has been passing that materia to them is you. I want you to tell me the names of your contacts and – "

"I can't tell you," cried Wilbraham. "I don't know who they are! You have to believe me! I never knew his name! Help me! Somebody! Please! Help me!"

"No one can hear you," said Tseng matter-of-factly, pulling on his black gloves. "And even if they could, nobody would help you."

Tseng had hoped Dr Wilbraham would not waste his time trying to be stubbornly heroic. As it was, he had to break one of the scientist's ribs before he would stop struggling long enough to be tied to the arms of the chair. One by one Tseng snapped the fingers of Wilbraham's right hand, quickly and painfully and without any particular satisfaction. Wilbraham screamed and panted, screamed and panted.

"Tell me," said Tseng.

"I can't! Please, please don't hurt me any more."

"I don't want to hurt you. But you have to talk to me."

"I can't! Please! You don't understand! They know where my family lives! They said they'd kill them!"

Tseng caught his breath on a sigh. Back in the early days, when he was still learning the ropes, he'd made a point of being honest whenever Shinra employees came into his hands. _Tell me what I need to know_, he'd say_, and I promise I'll kill you quickly and painlessly. We'll let your family have your body and give them a respectable explanation for your death. _It had never worked. Never. Oh, he'd usually managed to get what he wanted from them in the end, but it had been hard, ugly work, unnecessarily so.

So he had learnt to lie. _Talk to me, and you'll be all right. No one wants to harm you. _

He had been, initially, appalled by their willingness to believe him. Treason was punishable by death; they knew that. But apparently the conviction that an exception could always be made in one's own case was a universal human trait. Tempted by hope, they nearly always caved in and told him what he needed to know. When he was finished with them, he would call for one of his subordinates to escort them into protective custody, and then shoot the traitor quickly in the base of the skull as they were leaving the room. He did not delude himself that this small mercy made him any less of a liar.

Sometimes the Commander let the family have the body. Sometimes the death, and the reason for it, was made public. Sometimes the individual simply disappeared. It was said in Shinra that the Turks were unpredictable: if you got lucky, if you could tell them something useful, they might be willing to strike a deal.

Myths could be useful, as the Commander had said.

Tseng now told Wilbraham, "We can protect your family. If you choose to cooperate – "

The door opened, and Rufus Shinra walked in.

"I thought I'd locked that," said Tseng.

Rufus waved his key card. "You'll forgive the intrusion. I've always wanted to watch you work. So, what mouse have you got trapped between your paws today?" He crossed the room and stood before the broken, bleeding man in the chair. Dr. Wilbraham lifted his head, struggling to focus his eyes. "Rufus Shinra? Oh, thank heavens. Help me, boy. This Turk is trying to kill me."

"Of course he is," said Rufus. "And don't call your Vice-President _boy_. What's he done, Tseng?"

"Rufus," said Tseng quietly, "Come outside."

As soon as they were out in the corridor and the door to the interrogation room was shut, Rufus seized the opportunity to speak first. "Tseng, I hope you're not going to be a bore – "

"You can't come in there," said Tseng, in the tone he adopted when reasoning with the younger Turks. "Veld would forbid it. And your father would be furious, and rightly so. What I do in there is something no boy your age should see."

"What about her, then?" asked Rufus, pointing at Aviva, who had heard Tseng's voice and was poking her cropped head around the kitchen door to see if he wanted anything. "She's no older than I am."

"She works here."

"_I_ work here," Rufus objected.

"You play here," Tseng corrected him. "You can either leave now of your own accord, or I can phone the Commander, and he will call your father, and you know what your father will do."

"Ah, an ultimatum. Very well, then, have it your way. Even Turks have their scruples, I suppose. Though since I know perfectly well what it is you do in there, I can't quite grasp why it's such a problem to let me see it. I'll go, then – but first I have something for you. Look at this."

Rufus reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a little glass vial. In the vial was a small white pill. "I got it from Hojo," he said. "It's that truth drug they've been working on upstairs. I thought it might speed things up. Get that into him and he'll tell you everything he knows. Go on, take it."

Tseng's gloved hand took the vial and held it between thumb and forefinger. The pill looked as innocuous as an aspirin. He wondered if it _was_ aspirin. That thought gave him another.

"Can I stay now?" asked Rufus.

"Aviva," called Tseng, "Could you show the Vice-President to the elevators, please?"

When he was sure Rufus had gone, Tseng returned to the interrogation room. Dr Wilbraham had passed out, his head hanging down to one side. Tseng slapped his cheeks.

"Oh god," groaned Wilbraham as he came back to consciousness, "It's real – "

"Do you see this?" Tseng held out the white pill in the black leather palm of his hand. "It's something Professor Hojo's been working on. It's a –" _What might a truth drug be made of? – _"A cocktail of thiopental and Manipulate. You understand? To help you answer my questions truthfully."

Listening to himself, he winced. It sounded ludicrous. Still, you never knew. There was always the placebo effect, and Wilbraham might be desperate enough to believe it. Sometimes all people like Wilbraham needed was an excuse to unlock the floodgates. At any rate, it could do no harm. Worth a try, in other words.

Shoving a thumb into the doctor's mouth, he forced Wilbraham's jaws open and pushed the pill down his throat. For a few moments nothing happened. Then, in front of Tseng's astonished eyes, Dr Wilbraham's skin began to change colour, starting with his face and fingertips, which were rapidly turning a livid purplish red. The doctor's eyes bulged in their sockets. He retched violently, over and over, and his limbs twitched and jerked with such force that the chair leapt off the floor and fell sideways. Wilbraham's head hit the floor with a crack, but by this point Tseng had recognised the symptoms and realized the enormity of what he had, all unwittingly, done.

Dr Wilbraham, their one good lead to AVALANCHE, was dead from cyanide poisoning.

.

The Old Man hauled his son over the coals.

"Stupid boy! You stupid boy! What were you doing in Hojo's labs? I told you never to go in there."

"Lazard goes in there."

"Lazard is a grown man – and don't change the subject. How the blazes did you know about the truth drug? It's a failed experiment – we've never been able to make it work properly. Who told you about it?"

"Someone."

"Who?"

"I don't know. I can't remember all the people I talk to. It might have been one of the Turks; I'm not sure."

"Rufus, don't you realize the seriousness of this? What if you'd given that pill to one of your friends for a prank? Or, god forbid, taken it yourself?"

"Hojo shouldn't make all his pills look alike, then."

"We lost a vital lead because of you!"

"Well, but what about Tseng? I told him it was the truth pill because I thought it was, but don't you think he should have known better than to believe me? I mean, Father, I _am_ only sixteen years old."

.

"You should have known better," said Veld for the twentieth or perhaps the twenty-fifth time. There was blood on his belt, the same blood that was soaking the shirt on Tseng's back.

"I have no excuses," said Tseng, to whom the beating had come as a relief. He could forgive himself now.

Angrily Veld threw the belt to the floor. "That boy," he exclaimed, "Is a perfect menace."


	9. The Party in the Train Graveyard

**CHAPTER NINE: THE PARTY IN THE TRAIN GRAVEYARD  
_[in which Reno can't contact a friend, Aerith makes her first appearance, and several revelations take place in quick succession]_ **

Form /REP:6A

SHINRA ELECTRIC COMPANY

Department of Administrative Research

Mission Report

Mission to: Costa del Sol

Mission Objective: SOLDIER recruitment

Agents: Rude, Reno, Mink

Mission Date: March 16th 2001

Report filed by: Rude, ID S-DAR/M/56.S

Mission status: Accomplished

Arrived Costa del Sol 11.00 hours. Reno and Mink proceeded with identification and collection of potential candidates. Rude met with Charlie as per instructions. Charlie said AVALANCHE was not yet widely spoken of but he had heard the name mentioned once or twice. The offer was made to Charlie as per instructions. Charlie declined, but assisted Rude in the identification and collection of four SOLDIER candidates. Damage to the _Bar del Sol _estimated by the owner, Mr Mario da Silva, at g25,000. Firm quotation to follow. Rude advanced Mr da Silva g5,000 from expenses for immediate repairs. Please find receipt attached.

Selected candidates were brought to the ship and contained securely in the hold. Reno brought in five candidates including the one named Azul. Mink brought in six candidates, all from the _Club Duel_, after challenging and defeating the 'King' in hand-to-hand combat. Mink demonstrated exemplary battle skills and should be commended.

At 17.00 Reno went off duty. At 17.45 a fight broke out in the hold between Azul and some of the other candidates. Injuries were sustained. Azul was subdued by Rude with the assistance of Mink.

At 19.14 Rude received warning from Tseng of an attack by AVALANCHE on the ship. Rude left the ship to head them off. Mink remained to guard the ship. At approx 19.30 a force of AVALANCHE invaded the ship but were driven off by Mink and Rude. One of the AVALANCHE commanders, a man named Shears, reached the hold and released the candidates. Mink went after the candidates. Rude fought Shears and was knocked unconscious. At approx 20.00 Reno came back on duty, gave assistance to Rude, and assisted in the recapture of the candidates.

At 20.20 Rude received information from Tseng that the AVALANCHE ship was moored at Laguna beach. Rude and Reno went there intending to defeat and capture Shears. Shears fled. Reno and Rude returned to our ship.

At 24.00 ship set sail from Costa del Sol, arriving Junon Harbour 07.16 this morning. Transferred candidates to Midgar by helicopter, arriving c. midday.

Casualities: Shinra dead 0 wounded 0

AVALANCHE dead 12 (?) wounded 12 (?)

Civilians dead 0 wounded 20

Signed: **Rude **Dated: 17/03/91

.

The printer whirred out two copies of Rude's report, and he went to file them. On another computer, Reno was trying to write an email, but he was having trouble finding the right words. That was why he always talked Rude into writing their joint reports. Reno preferred to talk. When he spoke, his words seemed to come out OK, but when he wrote them down they looked… wrong. Rude would say it was because when you wrote your words down you had time to reflect. Reflection… yeah, that was something else Reno hadn't quite got the knack of yet. Whenever he tried to take a good look at himself, he seemed to go all blurry. It was like he could only see himself in sideways glances. Which made sense in his head, but would probably look stupid if he wrote it down. And anyway, why would she even be interested?

"Hi, Reno, sir."

He looked up to see Aviva standing at his desk, her arms full of files. "Hey kid, how you doing? Been busy while we were away?"

"Mostly patrolling Sector 8. I caught some muggers and I killed a chimera bug, but other than that it was quiet. I heard your mission went well?"

She had a little smile that came and went like a butterfly, landing on her lips and then flitting off again. He could see that she wanted to talk. But he wasn't in the mood.

"Yeah," he said, "There's nothing like a sea cruise." He pushed back his chair and stood up. "I'm going for a cigarette."

Rosalind glanced up from the gun she was cleaning. "Since when did you start leaving the office to have a smoke?"

"I'm all out, OK?"

Down on the cafeteria floor there was a cigarette machine in the rest area. Reno decided to take the stairs. The rest area wasn't too busy, just a few desk jockeys on break watching the TV news or reading the paper, and an army dude who looked familiar sitting alone on the other side of the big plastic tree. It was the blond kid, the one who'd never been in a helicopter before. Reno was surprised by how much it pleased him to see the boy alive. At least the poor sucker hadn't had to leave this world the virgin he so obviously still was. Maybe he and Aviva should get together. There was no rule against dating Shinra employees outside the department, and she had seemed to like him.

Yeah, she was a cute kid, he thought – for someone who was obviously a trained assassin and (he presumed) had had to sell herself in all sorts of ways just to stay alive. That time in the helicopter when he'd let her stroke his hair still felt weird to him. He'd expected Rude to needle him about it, but Rude had not mentioned it once.

Taking his cell phone from his jacket pocket, Reno scrolled through the names and pressed the speed dial. It rang and rang and eventually he was transferred to voice mail. Third time today. It would be pretty pointless to leave yet another message.

He bought his cigarettes and sat down under the big NO SMOKING sign and lit one. Smelling the smoke, a few people turned to look at him. Hurriedly they looked away again. When he was finished he ground the stub under his heel, flicked it into the bin, and went back to the 48th floor. Cavour had returned during his absence, and was talking with the others about a party he'd been invited to by one of the front desk receptionists. It was happening that night, and it was going to be huge. The lab scientists, the army grunts, SOLDIER, finance, personnel – everyone was going.

"Down in the train graveyard? They have that party every year," said Rosalind. "It's so much fun. I'd go, but I'm on duty, and so are Mink and Mozo. And Knox has gone back to Fort Condor. What about you guys?"

"I'd love to," said Aviva excitedly.

"Count me in," said Rude. "The music's always good."

Everyone looked at Reno. He heaved a sigh and said, "Yeah, sure, all right, why not? What could be more fun than dancing the night away with the same people I see in the elevator every day, the ones I take the stairs to avoid?"

"Why are you such a grouch today?" asked Rosalind.

"Because you're all buggin' me. I'll come to your party, OK? Now leave me alone. I have work to do."

.

**Private Email**

_Subject:__ Hey_

_From:__ Reno_

_To:__ Cissnei_

_Date:__ 17/3/01_

_I'm back. How are you? Eyes blue yet? They'll get you in the end if you're not careful._

_Why don't you return my calls?_

_I guess that's all I have to say._

His finger hovered over 'Send' for almost a minute, before moving to press 'Delete'.

.

Rufus was making a nuisance of himself in Tseng's office, walking around, touching things, opening files and pretending to read them, and complaining all the while. He wanted to go to the party but his father had grounded him as punishment for the Dr Wilbraham incident, thus sparing Tseng the task (since such tasks seemed to fall to him these days) of explaining that Shinra Company executives would not be welcomed in any case. Employees needed to let their hair down from time to time, to break lose in a controlled environment. Tonight they would have a lick of what tasted like freedom; tomorrow they would return to work secure in the knowledge that there was more to their lives than the daily nine-to-five, and they would be, Tseng supposed, content.

Rufus had apologized for Dr Wilbraham's death. The apology had sounded sincere, though Tseng remained unconvinced that Rufus was, in any real sense, sorry. The problem with Rufus was that he was bored. He had a job title but no real work, and with time hanging heavy on his hands he wound up on the 48th floor more often than not, looking for company and making mischief. He was drawn, Tseng presumed, by whatever it was about the work or the suit that attracted _applications _(Veld's loathed word) from jaded young aristocrats in places as far as apart as Mideel and the Northern Continent.

However, tonight Rufus was not Tseng's priority. He had another child weighing on his conscience whom he had put off for too long, in much the way that a man who knows he has a problem with some drug or alcohol will fight the longing, and defer the fix, in the struggle to master his weakness.

He stood in front of the mirror, straightening his tie, neatening his ponytail.

"Don't you _ever_ change out of that suit?" said Rufus.

"I'm working tonight. You'll have to leave now."

He locked his door, using a key to which Veld had the only duplicate, and took the elevator up to the roof, where the helicopter he had ordered earlier was waiting to take him to the edge of the Sector Five slums.

.

Over in the train graveyard, the boomboxes set up on top of the carriages pumped out music that echoed from dead engine to dead engine, setting the hollow cylinders humming. Imagine a pair of giant rusty metal jaws chewing through crystal glass to the beat of a dying monster's heart: imagine that sound reverberating off the concrete belly of the plate, expelling the stale air from the lungs of the slums and filling them with the energy of noise. The rats and cripshays and other creatures that lurked here had fled to quieter corners. Inside, between, and on the broken railway carriages, the youth of Shinra danced.

Reno was wearing his other uniform: white t-shirt, black jeans, leather jacket. Keep it simple. He had been here for nearly an hour and with three drinks inside him he was beginning to feel almost glad they'd made him come. Rude had already gone off with a woman whose interest in him was clearly more than friendly. They were off in the crowd somewhere, grinding hips and getting messy.

What with the dust and the sweat, and the smoke and the shimmering metal, this party smelt to Reno like the rain Midgar never saw: like dry earth drenched by a cloudburst on a hot summer day.

He had looked for Cissnei but not found her. He had called her to ask if she'd be here, but no one had answered. Maybe she was out of Midgar, out on a mission somewhere beyond the range of phone signals. Could be.

Up on one of the carriage rooftops, Aviva, in her drainpipe jeans and cropped orange top, stomped her feet in time to the rhythm, punching the air and shouting the lyrics. That kid knew how to have a good time. What was the saying? Pluck the flower of the day. Yeah.

She caught him looking at her, and waved and grinned.

Cavour appeared at his elbow. Reno bent to let the boy shout in his ear. "Over in the next carriage – they're dealing materia."

"No kidding."

"Have a look at this." Cavour pushed an irregular lump, about the size of a zeio nut, into Reno's hand.

Up above the plate, the guys in the backrooms of the labs did their own private materia fusing after hours, mixing equal parts of regen, the best tri-thundaga, and a secret ingredient they refused to divulge, to produce little turquoise balls with a golden sheen that guaranteed twelve hours of total bliss. Magic Stones, they were called, and they weren't cheap, but at least they wouldn't leave you with permanent brain damage.

What Cavour had put into Reno's hand was no Magic Stone. He rolled it between his fingers. It had a greasy, cloying texture. He held it up to the light. Its colour was more grey than green, though it did have a yellowish glow. He sniffed it. As he had expected, there was precious little materia there. Some low-grade Lightning, but mostly crystalised ether, hyper, and locoweed – the kind of ingredients it was easy to get your hands on in the slums.

"Dragon Fang," said Reno.

Cavour was familiar with it too. "I've seen guys die from that," he said.

"Yeah, this stuff is crap all right."

"Shouldn't we do something?"

"We're off duty. Relax. Go have fun. I'll hang on to this." He put the materia in his pocket, and turned around, and saw them.

Cissnei and Zack Fair.

Cissnei, beautiful in a white dress, her hair loose about her shoulders. Zack, handsome in a black t-shirt and black trousers. She was standing on tiptoe, her arms around his neck. He had one hand on her breast, the other on the small of her back, holding her close against him. They were not dancing so much as moving against one another in a slow rhythm of intolerable intimacy. Even in the darkness of the slums his mako eyes shone blue, bathing Cissnei's face in their glow. Reno had never seen her look so happy.

.

The baby Tseng had once rocked in his arms was growing into a lovely young woman. This realization struck him anew each time he saw her. Her eyes were sometimes grey, sometimes blue, sometimes green, depending on the mood she was in. Her thick, light brown hair was kept tied in a long plait that hung between her shoulder blades and swayed from side to side when she walked. She was very slender, with little breasts and long delicate limbs. Tseng imagined the ivory of her fluted bones. He could have snapped her in a dozen places with a flick of his finger. Yet she moved through these slums, this church, with her shoulders back and her chin high, unconscious of her own fragility.

She said, "You have your serious face on tonight."

Preferring not to look her in the eye, he let his gaze wander among the pillars and the stained glass windows, relics of an older and, some might say, more beautiful world, though probably no more generous or less cruel than this one. Human nature was a constant. It was inevitable that she should have found this church, drawn to it in the same way that Rufus Shinra was drawn to the Turks, by a kind of homing instinct.

He said, "I'll be sorry when you have to leave this place." There was a line between honesty and confession, and Tseng was always careful not to cross it.

"Perhaps I won't have to. Can't we skip the speech? Let's go sit on the steps and listen to the music."

Strange how it always seemed darker outside the church than in. She settled herself on the stone step, arms wrapped around her knees. Tseng sat awkwardly beside her, straightening the knife-edge creases in his trousers. The distant music throbbed hypnotically. She closed her eyes and moved her head from side to side, keeping time with the beat…

.

Reno had never seen Cissnei look so happy. It made him want to smash Zack's face in.

Cissnei was his; she should be his. He wanted her. He _wanted _her. How could he not have known it till this minute?

He wanted her so badly it hurt, like the craving he felt for the first cigarette in the morning, the cold beer at the end of a long day, the Cure after taking a beating, all the things he couldn't live without.

He wanted to hold her like that, fit his hands to her curves like that, pull her tight against him. He wanted to bury his face in her hair like that, breathe in her scent. He wanted to run his finger down her backbone, suck on her earlobe, lick her pale neck. Kiss her soft mouth.

He wanted to be the one she clung to, the one whose face shone in her eyes.

He wanted her, but Zack Fair had her. And she looked so happy. That was the knife blow. He had never seen _anyone_ look that happy.

.

"Do you like dancing?" Tseng asked.

"Uh-huh," Aerith nodded. "When I'm alone in the church I dance sometimes. But I've never been to a party like that one."

"When you're older, maybe," said Tseng.

"And will you be watching over me then?"

_Always._

He said, "Time is a luxury you may not have. New enemies are springing up all the time. Last month they came close to wiping out Midgar. The time may soon come when we can no longer guarantee your safety down here. If any of these terrorists groups were to learn your identity, they'd come after you, and they would not make your welfare their priority. I know that to you this must seem like a choice of evils, but I want to be sure that you understand your situation. If we reach a point where, in our judgement, you're in danger here, we'll take you in by force – "

"Who will? You will?"

"Me or one of the others."

Aerith shuddered. "I'll never go back in that building. To me it's a prison. I'd rather die."

_If the worst comes to the worst, and they decide to give you to Hojo, I will shoot you, I promise. And then myself._

Having this plan tucked away in the back of his mind was like jumping from a helicopter knowing he was wearing a parachute – how far would he let himself fall before he lost his nerve and pulled the cord?

He said, "You wouldn't have to stay in Midgar. We have offices everywhere. You could let us take you somewhere where the sun shines, where there's real soil under your feet. And grass. And rain."

"Rain…."

Ah –the magic word. She was tempted. Uncertainty crept into her face.

It would be the best thing for her if she agreed. He had to believe it. He did.

"No, I can't." Aerith shook her head. "I know you mean it for the best. But I can't leave the flowers. They would die."

She looked into his face, deeply, earnestly, wanting him to understand.

And this was why he came here less than he ought, less than he wanted to, more than he could bear to – because when she looked at him like that, he knew she was not seeing the Perfect Turk. She saw a man – maybe not a good man, but not an entirely bad man, either. He was her friend. She trusted him. And he allowed her, encouraged her, to put her faith in him. It was his job.

"Are you going already?" she asked as he stood up. "You never stay long these days."

"I must. I only came to see that you were all right, that you didn't need anything."

"And to lecture me," she giggled.

Such a longing she roused in him to hold something soft in his arms.

.

It was during moments of crisis, when most people would act on instinct and then regret it afterwards, that Veld's training of his Turks paid off.

_Don't feel. Think._

_ Don't react. Act._

_ Be silent. Be secret. Be discrete._

Knowing that if Cissnei looked over her shoulder right now and saw him, something bad would happen, Reno turned and tried to force his way through the crowd. He would have liked to run, but the press of people made it impossible. Hands reached out to hold him, smiles invited him to dance, strangers' voices called his name. Everybody recognised the red-haired Turk. Normally they'd have drawn back to let him pass, but tonight they were all drunk, or stoned, or just happy.

_My mistake_, thought Reno.

He found himself being pushed past a bar. Grabbing someone's drink, he gulped it down.

"Hey!"

"Here," said Reno, scattering a handful of gil across the counter. He snatched another drink and drained that too. And then another.

And while he was doing so, another part of his brain was thinking furiously, and what it thought was this. He'd never claimed to have much in the way of morals. Turks were practical people and morals rarely helped to get the job done. So that was fine: other people could have morals, because other people had all sorts of stuff that he didn't have and didn't want and didn't even understand sometimes. But what he did have was a code of honour, the same as all the Turks. _Obey the Chief. Complete the mission. Cover each other's backs. _Nice simple rules to live by.

_Don't fuck with your partner._

She was his comrade, his buddy; his fellow mischief-maker. They'd practically grown up together. She knew things about him he'd never told to anyone else, not even Rude. She was his _friend_. He would have trusted her with his life -

But this lust for her - this sudden, _aching_, out-of-nowhere urge to fuck her senseless - was like a snake chewing on his entrails. A hot, writhing worm. Irrepressible. All-consuming. Like nothing he'd ever felt before -

But she was his _partner -_

His mind was going round in circles.

Or maybe that was the alcohol.

If he drank any more he'd puke. He had to stop. He had to escape from here somehow, or at least get off this train of thought. Then he remembered the greasy little ball of adulterated materia in his pocket, the one he'd taken from Cavour and was saving for later. Now was later, or later was now. Whatever. Grimacing at its bitter taste, he tucked the dragon fang into his cheek and waited for its effects to soak through to his bloodstream. He hadn't taken this stuff for years, not since joining Shinra, where unlimited access to the real thing was a major perk of the job. But if he remembered rightly, it ought to do the trick. Or fry his brain, which right at this moment wasn't looking like such a bad alternative.

And anyway, she didn't want him. She'd wanted Zack Fair, and now she had him. And she was happy.

How had this happened to him? He'd never before wanted a girl who didn't want him. What would be the point? To be miserable, horny and frustrated? When Midgar was full of girls far from home and lonely for a little company? All he'd ever wanted was a good laugh, a good time, and good-bye. He didn't want to get to know them. He didn't want to hear their stories. There were days in the office when he might spend twelve hours at a stretch cataloguing the intimate emails of strangers, listening in on their phone calls and noting down their dirty little secrets. The last thing he wanted when he clocked off was more of the same.

And anyway, she didn't want him. She wanted Zack.

This music was so loud. The noise was making his head throb; his eyeballs seemed to be pulsing in their sockets. His whole body jangled. Lights were dancing in a circle around him. Like someone had plugged him into the amplifier and was flicking the switch on, and off, and on, and off….

.

The ringing of his phone woke him from a deep sleep.

_Cissnei_

He was naked on the floor of a room he didn't recognize, though by the light he knew it was somewhere above the plate. There were high windows, and a big bed.

_Cissnei_

His phone rang insistently, guiding him across the room to where his jeans had been thrown over the back of a carved chair.

_Cissnei_

He opened his phone. "Hullo?"

"Reno, where are you?"

"Oh, hey, Boss. I'm here, I think."

"Why aren't you in the office? It's nearly nine."

"Roger. On my way. I just have to go home and get changed first."

There was a long disapproving silence at the other end of the line.

_Yeah_, thought Reno, _just bite me, why don't you?_

"Make it as fast as you can," said Tseng at last.

_You know what, boss? _thought Reno. _You ought to get yourself some, instead of mooning around after that flower girl and kidding yourself you've got us all fooled._

What he said was, "Understood."

_Cissnei_

He got dressed and turned to look at the body in the bed. He, she, whoever they were, was lying face down, very still. Looking kind of dead, actually. All Reno could see was the back of their head. They had shortish fair hair and a pierced ear. Reno laid two fingers on their throat and felt a strong pulse. So, just deeply asleep. An enviable state.

_Cissnei_

He had no memory of this person or of what they had done together, if anything. Woman, man, boy, girl –

_Cissnei_

He wouldn't look. He didn't care. What did it matter, anyway?

_Cissnei_

Having carefully removed every trace of his presence from the room, he let himself out, and quietly shut the door.

* * *

_Author's Note_

_The idea of having a party in the train graveyard is not originally mine. It's such an obvious place to hold a huge noisy rave that there are probably many fics featuring similar parties; however, I first came across the idea in Karanguni's fic 'Dark Places' at ._

_For those who are interested in such things, the music Aviva is dancing to is, of course, "Only Shallow" from the album Loveless by My Bloody Valentine. Or it would be, in a different world. _


	10. Special Episode of Reno

**CHAPTER TEN: SPECIAL EPISODE OF RENO  
_[in which Rude is perceptive, Reno gets more than he bargained for when he wishes for a little excitement, and Zack tries to be helpful]_ **

* * *

_You don't often take a good look at yourself, do you, Reno? You don't stand in front of the mirror counting the scars the way you used to when it was all brand new. Any cut that doesn't kill will eventually heal; that's what's written on your skin._

_You'd have thought that discovering the truth about your feelings for Cissnei might have changed something, but like what? It's the same as Natalya's death; you go on as before because that's all there is to do. No big drama. You work, you play, you crack jokes and laugh and sometimes you even forget all about it. Your packet of twenty Bahamut filtertips doesn't last the whole day like it used to, and you go out playing cards with Rude and Mozo more than you used to, and lose more money, and you do more overtime than you used to, and you put up your hand for the really dirty jobs a bit more than you used to, because sometimes someone else's pain is just what you need. And when you go off work you prowl round the bars more than you used to, sometimes all night, until you end up at somebody's place or else back at the office, and a couple of times you fall asleep at your desk, and almost a week goes by before you realize you haven't been back to your apartment once. And quite a few times a day you think about her feet in those black stiletto heels, walking around above your head. But you know you'll get over it. It's just a temporary insanity._

_This is the thing that scares you, though. The thought that she knew before you did. Saw into you. Knew you better than you knew yourself. Which means the reason she's avoiding you is because she's trying to be kind._

_You think about this from time to time, and then you get back to work._

* * *

_April 1st 2001. 11.37 am_

"I've done some pretty boring shit in my time," said Reno, "But this beats all." He and Rude were in the archives of the science department, picking their way among the mess of papers and folders that covered the floor. "Why'd they have to trash the place?"

"To hide what they stole," said Rude. "Once we know that, we'll know who they are."

Reno groaned. "It's like the filing from hell. Why can't they get one of the secretaries to do this?"

"This stuff is classified. And the thief could come back."

"Well, I am not happy. Hey, partner, look what I made." Reno had folded a piece of paper into an origami airplane. The word CONFIDENTIAL was clearly visible along the wing. He launched it at Rude. Rude caught it and smoothed out the paper, saying, "Just get on with the job. We have to put all this stuff back so we can find out what's been stolen."

Reno picked up a ring binder and placed it randomly on one of the shelves. "That thief is long gone, man, trust me."

As if on cue, the intruder alert went off, red lights flashing, klaxon blaring. "So what triggered that?" said Rude as he continued to work. Several moments later a Red Saucer security robot trundled into the archive room. "We got a visitor," said Reno.

"It may have been activated by the thief."

"Rude, that's crazy. The thief came here looking for something, so he knows what we keep here, which means he knows enough about the building to know he had about three minutes to get out before these things targeted him. He is gone and he isn't coming back."

"Hmm," said Rude. "We should be careful. Don't take anything for granted."

As the last word was leaving his mouth, the Red Saucer made a whizzing sound and fired a bolt of electricity at them. Rude and Reno leapt backwards and the bolt struck the bookcase, burning a smoking hole through the wood and into the concrete of the wall behind.

"Looks like Security's been upped to S-level," said Reno.

His gun was already in his hand. He fired two shots in rapid succession. The impact of the bullets flipped the robot onto its back. It whirred, fizzed, and died.

"Metal tortoise," Reno laughed.

"Speed isn't everything," Rude observed.

"What are you saying? Was that remark aimed at me? You big lummox, you're just bitter because I'm faster than you and you know it. You couldn't catch me the day we met, and you can't keep up with me now. If I was to take you on against those Saucers, I would _own _you, man."

"Want to bet?"

"Betcha a pair of sunglasses."

Rude cracked his knuckles. "Bring it on."

Exchanging grins, they ran out into the corridor.

.

_PHS Transcript 12.02 pm_

_Veld: Cissnei, give me a damage report on the security incident._

_Cissnei: Nothing much to report from here, sir. We have a SOLDIER First Class dealing with the intruders._

_Veld: Sephiroth?_

_Cissnei: It's Zack Fair, sir. Didn't you see the personnel announcement? Sephiroth is upstairs with the President. _

_Veld: Good. And Lazard? _

_Cissnei: He's here with me, sir._

_Veld: The security robots are malfunctioning. Do you know anything about that?_

_Cissnei: Hold on a moment, sir. sounds of static and voices talking Apparently there's a problem with a number of the control systems in the building, sir, not just the robots._

_Veld: I'll call you back._

_Cissnei: Roger._

_._

_ "Victory is mine!" crowed Reno. "Hand over the shades, loser."_

Rude took off his sunglasses and gave them to Reno. Reno put them on.

"Bug-face," said Rude. It was true: the combination of goggles and glasses gave Reno the look of a four-eyed insect.

"This bug buggin' you?" Reno laughed.

Rude took another pair of sunglasses from his inside pocket. Reno's phone rang. "Chief? What's happening with the security alert? Yup. Check. Rude and I will get right on it – Stay here? Do we have to? He is? Uh-huh. Yes, all right, sir. Understood. Uh-huh. Priority. Roger."

"He wants us to keep filing, right?" said Rude

"Yeah." Reno shoved his phone in his pocket and bent down to pick up an armful of files.

All the joy had gone out of him, just like that, like a pricked balloon.

"You OK?" said Rude.

"Never better."

"So who's securing the building?"

"SOLDIER first class Zack Fair."

"Huh," said Rude. "I saw he got promoted."

They worked on for a few minutes without speaking. Then Rude thought to ask, "Who's re-aligning the security network?"

"She is. Cissnei."

"Hmm," said Rude.

Reno flung his armful of files to the floor. "Man, he's screwing her."

"Ah," said Rude.

"Huh! Hmm! Ah! Is that all you can say?"

"It is – her mission, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Mission. And she likes it."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"Oh, fuck, no. We should all be so lucky to have so much fun at work."

"Reno – are you jealous?"

"Jealous? Of Cissnei?" Reno contrived a laugh. "Well – yeah. Yeah, you bet I am. She's always been the Chief's favourite, and now she's up there in the middle of all the action while we're stuck down here doing secretarial work."

Rude gave him a long look over the top of his sunglasses. "That's… not what I meant."

"Look behind you!" exclaimed Reno.

Rude whirled, and caught a glimpse of what Reno had seen: a shadowy figure breaking into a run. Footsteps rang through the empty corridors. The intruder was heading for the elevators.

"Cut him off," Reno shouted. "I'll follow him."

Reno's feet barely touched the floor, but the inruder had a good head start. He was already in the elevator, and the doors were closing. If Reno didn't act fast they would lose him. Levelling his EMR, he blew the doors apart with a single blast and leapt into shaft, landing square on the roof of the descending elevator. Knowing it would be suicidal to risk damaging the lift's mechanism with lightning, he took out his gun, and knelt beside the hatch to open it.

The password wouldn't work.

_Fucking fucked-up security system!_

A Red Saucer dropped beside him, its laser eye seeking warmth and motion. Reno kicked it hard against the walls of the shaft. It shattered. Another fell. "I'm on your side, you brainless machine!" he yelled. He shot the robot, and then, in sheer frustration, emptied his magazine into the elevator's roof. The bullets ricocheted, pinging in all directions: Reno covered his head and ducked.

The elevator jerked to a stop so suddenly that he was thrown onto his knees and banged his forehead against the hatch. Where were they? The letters whitewashed onto the shaft wall read _20th Floor_. Why had they stopped halfway down?

There was a loud clunk that sounded seriously not good. The cogs shifted, the pulley squealed, and the elevator began to ascend.

Under his feet he could feel a thudding. Someone was punching the elevator's ceiling. Rude's voice came to him, faint and hollow, from inside: "Reno! I can't stop it! The controls are jammed!"

And the elevator was gathering speed.

The shaft's ceiling was fifty floors above him. That gave him less than two minutes to get the hatch open before he was squashed like a mosquito against a helicopter windscreen.

_Don't panic. Breathe. Think._

_ Call Tseng._

_._

_PHS Transcript, 1.4.01 12.07 pm_

_Veld: Cissnei, status report._

_Cissnei: The President is safe, sir. SOLDIER Zack Fair has secured the building. But some of the malfunctioning security robots have escaped into Sector 8 and are attacking civilians._

_Veld: What's wrong with them?_

_Cissnei: I don't know, sir. We've got some of the systems back under control, but not all of them. We're re-setting the passwords now. _

_Veld: Public confidence in Shinra is our top priority. Go and deal with the situation in Sector 8._

_Cissnei: Roger – sir, wait, I have Tseng on the other line. Let me put you on hold. Tseng?_

_Tseng: Cissnei, Reno's in trouble. He's trapped on the roof of elevator A108. It's rising and we can't stop it. The password to open the hatch won't work. I'm putting him on._

_Cissnei: Reno? Reno?_

_Reno: Hey. Ciss. Nice of you to take my call._

_Cissnei: Don't piss about, you fuckwit. Use this code: nineteen fifty-nine oh nine oh three._

_static. Sound of rumbling cables and metal gears grinding_

_Cissnei: Reno? Reno, are you there?_

_Reno: It says I need an override code. _

_Cissnei: Shit, shit, the override code –_

_Reno: Ciss, help me. _

_Lazard's voice in the background: It's fifty-four._

_Cissnei: Fifty-four_

_Reno: Fifty-four. Got it. Oh, no – _

_static_

_Cissnei: Reno!_

_._

He was coming up to the Presidential floor and his body heat had triggered a security attack: the President's elevator doors opened, and a huge Proto-Golem robot made of shining steel and bright enamel came thudding down onto the elevator roof so heavily that for one wild moment Reno was sure its weight would snap the cable, and instead of being crushed like a bad nut he was going to plummet seventy floors and be smashed like a rotten apple. But the cable held, and the elevator continued to rise, very slightly more slowly. Reno lashed out at the robot with his EMR, to little effect. Its arms swept back and forth. He was struck on the shoulder and sent sprawling.

Seconds later, the robot's head made contact with the ceiling. Still the lift continued to rise like a scrap compactor, scraping, screeching, crumpling, crushing. The air filled with the smell of hot stressed metal.

Buffered by the robot's body, the elevator stopped with a metre to spare.

The hatch swung open, and Rude's head and shoulders appeared. He had taken off his sunglasses. They were tucked into his front pocket, and his brown eyes were wide with relief.

"Hey, partner," said Reno shakily. "That was exciting, huh?"

"Yeah," said Rude. "Be careful what you wish for, next time." He wasn't smiling.

.

_PHS Transcript 12.45_

_Veld: Reno, how are you?_

_Reno: Good to go, sir._

_Veld: That's the spirit. What happened to the target?_

_Reno: Rude thinks he escaped by climbing down the shaft cable, sir._

_Veld: Damn. All right, listen. We have a major problem on our hands. Some of the malfunctioning robots escaped the building and are running amok in Sector 8. We need to get the situation under control before any civilians are harmed. Get down there as fast as you can and rendezvous with Tseng at the fountain. He'll give you further instructions._

_Reno: Roger. Reno out. _

Clicking his phone shut, Reno turned to Rude and said, "I don't know about you, partner, but I'm taking the stairs."

* * * * * * * * * *

Tseng was not at the fountain when they arrived, but Cissnei was.

Dressed in her suit and steel-capped black boots, shuriken in hand, her cheeks spattered with blood and dirt, and with the light of battle in her eyes, she looked just as he remembered her: his old partner in crime.

When she saw him she shouted his name, dropped her weapon, and came running, like a bullet, straight into his arms.

"You're alive!" she cried. "You're alive."

She kissed him, hard, teeth to teeth.

He was so astonished he had no time to be delighted, barely had time to savour the moment or fully appreciate that not even in his wildest imaginings (and they had been pretty wild) had her mouth tasted so good – before Rude coughed, loudly, yet discretely. Cissnei immediately recollected herself, and tried to step back; and Reno, being as he so often was his own worst enemy, held on to her a second too long, so that she had to push him away. And suddenly it was all very awkward.

Nobody spoke.

Then Cissnei punched him in the arm, hard. "You bastard," she hissed. "You let me think you were dead. Why didn't you call me?"

Reno couldn't answer. All he could think was, _You kissed me. _

Rude – had he been casting about for something to distract Cissnei from Reno's sudden attack of dazed stupidity? – took her by the arm and pointed, asking, "What are those things?"

Beside the railings in the far corner of the square lay two bodies, human in form and identical in appearance. Both were dressed in rose-coloured leather greatcoats, with black shoulder guards and high buckled boots. "Genesis?" said Rude in disbelief.

"They have wings – well, a wing each," said Cissnei. "I don't know what they are. Come and see."

The creatures looked less like the awol SOLDIER when seen up close. They had Genesis' hair, but thin and lacklustre. They had his features, but somehow smudged. And each had one sooty, mangy wing.

"Monsters," said Rude in disgust.

"I don't know," said Cissnei. "Monsters are animals and animals are usually symmetrical. Two eyes. Four legs. Two wings. These things look like they weren't made right to start with. They can fly pretty well, though. You'd think they'd go round in circles."

"Did they give you much trouble?" Rude asked her.

"They may look like Genesis but they don't fight like Genesis. They're weak. I didn't have any trouble killing them. I think they're some kind of…. I don't know… unfinished copy?"

"They're not from our labs," said Rude. "Does the Chief know?"

"I told him. There's more than just these two, though – I've seen others flying around. Just what we need on top of the crazy robots."

She was talking an awful lot, Reno thought. Chatter chatter: a surge of words. Right now he didn't give a flying fart about copies or monsters or that self-absorbed git Genesis. He wanted to re-wind to the moment when she kissed him, and then pause – P-A-U-S-E - But these two, Rude and Cissnei, were rushing time forward with their flood of noise…

"So is Genesis here too?" asked Rude.

Cissnei shrugged. "Anything is possible. Listen, guys, we can't allow civilians to see these bodies. Can you dispose of them for me? I have to try and track the other ones down. Tseng should be here any minute. Wait for him. I'll see you later. And Reno, you fuckwit – you owe me big time for scaring me shitless like that. I won't forget."

Bending down to snatch up her shuriken, she pelted off in the direction of the theatre.

Rude said, "She's getting - kinda bossy, isn't she?"

Reno's single thought was flapping round and round inside his head as if it, too, had one wing. _She kissed me. Why? What does it mean? Something? Nothing?_

"Wake up," said Rude, snapping his fingers in front of Reno's eyes. "We have work to do."

The bodies of the Genesis duplicates were easily disposed of. Their skin was like tissue paper, their flesh rotten: one jolt from the EMR turned them into blackish vapour. Job done, Rude took out his phone to find out what was keeping Tseng. Reno, hearing footsteps, glanced round and saw Zack Fair, sword in hand, running towards them at the double with his head down: he was almost on top of them before he realized they were there.

"Turks!" he cried.

There was a note in his voice that Reno had sometimes heard before, the kind of tone a man might use when he lifted his shoe and saw a mess of dogshit and said "Ugh."

Most men who knew anything about Shinra would have been careful not to use that tone of voice within a Turk's earshot. Not Zack, though. A SOLDIER First Class wouldn't see the need to watch his mouth.

But he must know that Cissnei was a Turk. Didn't he?

As if it had a mind of its own, Reno's arm suddenly shot out, levelling the rod at Zack Fair's face.

"Get out of my way," said Zack.

Reno kept the rod steady. "Sector Eight is Turks' turf, slick."

He wanted so badly to tell him. _Hey, guess what, SOLDIER? Your girlfriend just kissed me. Like she meant it. _

Rude had come to stand at Reno's shoulder.

Tell him, then kill him. They could always pretend the robots had got him.

Zack said, "You gotta be kidding me. I'm here to help you."

"Rude. Reno." Tseng's dark voice came from behind them.

"Hey, Boss."

"Good to see you in one piece, Reno."

"Tseng," said Zack, "What's going on?"

Tseng ignored him. "Reno, report."

Without moving his eyes from Zack, or lowering his rod from Zack's face, Reno replied, "Midgar's just crawling with nasties."

"Heh," added Rude. "SOLDIER's having difficulties."

"Tseng, man," cried Zack, "Gimme a break here!"

"There's no need for concern," Tseng told him. "We have everything under control. Rude, Reno – the intruder from the elevator has been sighted in the vicinity of the train station. I want you to track him down. If possible, bring him in alive. But the first priority is recovery of the documents."

"Understood, Boss."

The two Turks wheeled away to the left and headed for the stairs that rose to the upper esplanade. The hands of the clock in the arch pointed to one-fifteen. It was lunch hour, and normally the pavements and plazas of Sector 8 would be thronged with hungry office workers. Today the place was deserted: the citizens of Midgar knew from experience that it was smart to dive for cover when there was trouble on the streets.

At the top of the stairs Reno paused and looked back down at the fountain. Cissnei had returned; she was talking with Tseng and Zack. But something wasn't right about the scene. She and Zack – they were standing so stiffly – as if – as if they barely knew each other. Why? For whose benefit? What was going on?

Who was telling the lie here, and who was being lied to?

"Come on," called Rude. "He's getting away."

"Yeah – just hang on -"

Rude came back. He looked at Reno, then looked down at the fountain, and saw Cissnei run off under the clock arch, twirling her weapon. A moment later Zack ran after her. Rude turned to Reno, chuckling. "_Slick_? Where the hell did that come from?"

He saw the look on Reno's face, and stopped laughing.

"Oh man," he said, "Don't go there."

"Already bought the ticket, boarded the train, and ridden it to the end of the line."

"Shit," said Rude with feeling. "That bad, huh?"

"Nah. I'll live." Both Cissnei and Zack were out of sight now, and Tseng was walking away at his usual measured pace in the opposite direction. Reno shook himself, waking from the daydream to address the business at hand. 'C'mon, tortoise, let's go get our man. To the train station! Race you!"

* * *

_Author's note: Anyone familiar with both Crisis Core and Before Crisis will know that this Episode [the title is taken directly from BC] is one of the few nexus points between the two games._


	11. Reflections and Accommodations

**_CHAPTER ELEVEN: REFLECTIONS AND ACCOMMODATIONS  
In which Veld considers the evidence, Rude and Reno discuss Cissnei, and the Turks move house _**

_Above Plate..._

A number of reports landed on Commander Veld's desk the next morning, confirming in writing that concatenation of events which he had already learnt about, piecemeal, through telephone conversations the previous day. He made a note of the key items on his pad:

_Archive thief - Professor Hollander_

Hollander, once Hojo's rival for leadership of the Science Department, but sidelined after the failure of Project G, had disappeared at about the same time as Genesis.

_Genesis working with Hollander_

This fact was now indisputable. Reno and Rude had chased Hollander into the underbelly of the plate and as far as Sector 5, but had been unable to capture him due to the relentless attacks by the Genesis copies. The clincher, though, was the attempt made by Genesis himself to kill, or possibly kidnap, Hojo, presumably on Hollander's bidding. But why would a man as aristocratic and as arrogant as Genesis be willing to do Hollander's dirty work for him? Hojo, when questioned by Tseng, had said that Genesis was 'deteriorating', whatever that meant. Mentally, maybe? Tseng had asked him to explain, but Hojo had laughed and said explanations would be meaningless for those without scientific vision. God, what a piece of kak that man was.

_Stolen documents relate to mass SOLDIER desertion incident, Wutai, October 1999_

This was what Veld had expected.

_Secret lab Sector 5 reactor basement _

How could Hollander and Genesis have hidden down there for so long undetected? Reeve was a genius, but the city he was building was a reflection of the way his own mind worked, a maze of dead ends and tortuous passageways and locked chambers. Veld had thought he knew Midgar like the back of his hand. Obviously he'd been wrong. Better tighten that up.

_ Sephiroth's loyalties? Angeal?_

According to the report filed by Sephiroth, Angeal remained loyal to Shinra. Veld suspected that both Angeal's and Sephiroth's first loyalties were to their old friendships. All three of the fugitives – Genesis, Angeal, Hollander – had escaped; it seemed likely that they had been allowed to escape by SOLDIER. And what about Lazard? What did he know? What was his part in this? That information was vital. Cissnei would have to start trying a bit harder.

Genesis and Hollander. AVALANCHE. Wutai. Shinra's enemies were multiplying.

Veld tapped the pen against his silicon knuckles. There was one more thing to add. He did not yet know its significance, if any, but his job was to strategize, and to do this he needed to consider all eventualities, all variables, even one as unforeseen, as apparently random, as this:

_In the course of pursuing Hollander, SOLDIER Zack Fair fell from Reactor Five into the slum church below and made contact with the primary objective, Aerith Gainsborough._

_

* * *

_

_Below Plate..._

"So," said Rude to Reno. "Cissnei. What gives?"  
They were down in _The Live and Let Live_ in the Sector Two slums. This bar was their mutual secret, the place they went to when they wanted to be sure none of the other Turks would find them. _The Live and Let Live_ was a rusty old cargo container with the roof removed, where the rotgut brewed in the tin-can still out back cost a gil a shot, and most of the clientele were the saddest kind of crook: hungry, ragged petty thieves, kids and old men. Reno had done a lot of his underage drinking here, before the Chief plucked him out of the mob, raised him plateside, and made him somebody.

"I dunno," said Reno. "I just can't stop thinking about her."

"But what happened?"

"I dunno. She got sent off to SOLDIER and I didn't see her for a while and then when I did, wham! Sucker punch. I never saw it coming."

"Seriously?"

"You did. I remember. You see it all, don't you, Rude? And you keep it all to yourself. Otherwise I wouldn't be telling you this."

"If the Chief finds out…"

"Finds out what?" Reno threw back his head and drained his glass. "She's got Zack. She isn't interested in me."

"She kissed you."

"Bartender, two more. Yeah. That was one hell of a bizarre day, wasn't it? Every time I thought it couldn't get any more random, it did. I nearly kissed _you_, I was so fucking delirious to escape with my skin intact. She was glad to see me alive, that's all. Ciss and I are still friends, I think. That's what makes it all so…. so… weird."

"You better be careful you don't mess up her mission with SOLDIER. "

"Drink," said Reno. "C'mon. Keep up. Down the hatch. I'm not going to do anything stupid, OK? She doesn't want me. I'll just live with it and then I'll get over it."

"Find someone else," Rude suggested.

"Tried it. Doesn't work."

While he talked, Reno kept his hands busy building a wall out of their empty shot glasses. Rude was a little alarmed to see just how big the wall was becoming. He didn't think he'd drunk more than he usually did. So how much was Reno putting away?

"Reno," he said after a moment, "Do you – love her?"

Reno set down the glass he'd just drained. He turned it on its side and began spinning it. "Man," he said, "I don't even know what that means. I mean, sure, I say it, all the time. _Yeah, 'course I love you, baby, 'course I'll call you._ You know. That crap. And sometimes I wonder how it would be with Ciss and me. What if we did get it together? And what if after a week I couldn't stand the sight of her any more?"

He balanced the final glass on top of the wall. Then, with a vicious jab of his finger, he knocked the lynchpin loose and all the glasses came tumbling down onto the zinc tabletop, chipping, cracking, smashing.

"Music to my ears," Reno grinned. "Yeah, yeah," he added with a sigh as the angry bartender approached. "I'll pay."

* * *

_**Departmental Email, Administrative Research**_

_**Subject:** New security measures_

_**From:** Director Veld_

_**To:** All staff_

_**Date:** 7th April 2001_

_ In view of the multiple threats to Shinra that have surfaced in recent months, I feel it is necessary to take certain steps to ensure your protection, both on a personal level and as assets of this company which we are sworn to serve. I have therefore made arrangements for you to move into corporate housing on Warehouse Street in Sector 8._

_The property is equipped with security protection on a par with that used for the President, and is accessible to the Shinra Building via an underground passageway. There are a gym and sauna in the basement. Each of you will be allocated a furnished studio apartment with cooking facilities and private washroom. Family members may not accompany you. I intend this move to be a temporary measure only, for the duration of the current crisis, and I have every confidence that you will understand the need for these measures and make them work to our advantage. The deadline for moving in is the end of this week._

Reno read through the Commander's email and mentally shrugged. One bolt-hole was as good as another, and Veld had said nothing about a curfew. If the others got on his nerves too much in the new place he could just lock the door and turn up the volume on his headphones. At least there'd always be someone around to talk to. As long as he could keep his cleaner, or _a_ cleaner, he could live with the new arrangements. There wasn't much more than a suitcase worth of stuff to move from his apartment anyway. Rude wasn't looking happy, though. Well, he was a private kind of guy. Probably hated the thought of someone else seeing his boxers go round in the washing machine. Funny, the things they each got pissy about.

Aviva and Cavour already lived in the company housing, so no change for them. As for Mink, she'd obviously been born a Turk: whatever she was asked to do, she did, no fussing.

"What about you, Knox?" asked Rosalind. "What will you do about Barbara and the boys?"

Knox had taken off his glasses and was polishing them on his shirt. "They've gone back to Mideel. Midgar's no place for kids right now. They're staying with her parents. The boys are playing in the sunshine, climbing trees. They'll be OK." He put his glasses back on. Looking at no one in particular, he added, "You might as well know, Barbara and I have separated."

A shocked silence fell. Knox and Barbara had seemed to all of them like one of those rock-solid couples whom only death could part.

"I'm sorry to hear that," said broken-nosed Mozo at last.

"It's been a while coming. She thought she could handle this life, but she can't. It's better like this, actually. I used to worry they might be targeted. Having them gone – it's a weight off my mind."

He sounded as if he'd almost succeeded in making himself believe it.

One by one they made the move into their new home. The apartments were characterless: clean lines and simple furniture, with blue Shinra tiles, blue recessed lighting, and the red company logo on the walls. Mozo covered his floor with bright Costa tapestries and hung up big photographs of sunrises and flowers. Who would have guessed the ex-detective had such a colourful side? Knox brought his bookcase, his rugs from home, the photos of his family, and the little clay pots his kids had made in school. On Rosalind's shelves the books were neatly arranged according to height, colour, and subject matter, and her shoes stood smartly side by side on the door mat. Cavour had pin-up calendars from tire companies, and stacks of gun magazines tied together with string. Aviva's walls were plastered with posters of LOVELESS actors and singers from the slum's metal bands; her bed was heaped with cushions shaped like moogles, chocobos, and cats. New clothes, the price tags still attached, burst out of her closet.

Rude showed up on the appointed day with a guitar slung over his back. Aviva was delighted. "Play something for us," she begged him.

"Some other time."

Tseng's studio, from what brief glimpses they caught of it through the doorway, was like an office: laptop, printer, files; a pressed suit hanging on the bathroom door; and always a vase of flowers, yellow and white.

Mink and Reno brought their clothes.

The only other thing Reno brought to his new apartment was a toy helicopter that he'd bought from a kid in the slums. It had been soldered together from old copper wire and pieces of cooking-oil cans, and was so skillfully made that the blades spun round when he breathed on them.

He quickly found himself missing the balcony of his old apartment.

Still, it didn't take him long to re-wire the coded lock for the hatchway that gave access to the flat roof, and soon he was sleeping up there more often than not. Sometimes the little cat kept him company. It didn't seem to want to be with Reno, particularly; rather, they both happened to find themselves in the same place at the same time. It sat on the eaves with its back to him, beyond arm's reach, its tail curled round its forepaws, its face turned up to the clouds.

The one Turk missing was Cissnei, but that was just as well, Reno reflected. He had no idea where she was living these days. And that was just as well, too. He didn't want to degenerate into some kind of pathetic lust-crazed stalker.

She never called. She didn't email. So he didn't either. _I can take a hint_, he thought. Occasionally he saw her at a distance, walking through Fountain Square, or in the mezzanine waiting for the elevator. He always turned the other way, wondering, as he did so, whether she did the same when she saw him first.

About two weeks after they moved into the corporate housing, Tseng announced during one of the morning briefings that she had left Midgar to accompany Director Lazard on a global tour of Shinra's military bases. She would be gone, he said, for several months. Reno couldn't say exactly how he felt when he heard that. He wanted to feel glad. He was pretty sure he felt relieved.

The weeks passed. One blonde swimsuit girl replaced another on Cavour's calendar as April turned to May and then May to June, and it began to look as if the Commander had been overly alarmist in insisting they all move to secure quarters. Wutai was behaving itself. AVALANCHE had gone silent (though Veld insisted that what little information they possessed pointed to the likelihood of further attacks). Genesis, Angeal, and Hollander seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth. Deprived of his sim-room playmates, Sephiroth had been reduced to hunting monsters to keep his hand in. Midgar was quieter than Reno had ever known it. Fighting the occasional chimera bug, chasing a mugger, busting the odd street dealer had become major events, report-worthy. Better were the missions when he went with Rude or Mozo or Mink or Aviva to some godforsaken corner of the planet to chase up leads on AVALANCHE. The leads never came to anything, but at least he was flying.


	12. Moments from the Present

**CHAPTER TWELVE: MOMENTS FROM THE PRESENT  
_In which we get to know all the Turks a bit better, and spy on Zack and Aerith_ **

_Thoughts from Afar_

Reno and Rude receive postcards from Cissnei. She's in Wutai now. Rude's postcard has a picture of Da Chao. Reno's shows a girl in traditional Wuteng dress. On the back Cissnei has written _Have been captured by white slavers. Send money!_ He sticks it on his fridge with a magnet, and looks at it often.

One day, he thinks, I'll be able to tell her. And we'll have a good laugh.

*

_In Nibelheim with Mink._

The rumoured AVALANCHE activity turns out to be nothing but a bunch of kids who found some raw materia in the reactor's slagheap, blew a hole in a farmer's barn, and are too scared to admit it. Mink patiently coaxes the truth from them. Reno wouldn't have known how. Watching her handle those kids gets him thinking.

When they're done she says she wants to walk up the mountain before they return to Midgar. Reno can come with her or not; she doesn't care. Since the alternative is sitting around doing nothing, he chooses the walk. She doesn't talk much, ever. Yet people tell her things. Reno starts telling her about when he was a kid: he tells her the story of how he was recruited into the Turks, which is no secret, but he doesn't normally bore people with it either. He talks and Mink listens, and while he talks he looks at her long hair blowing in the wind, thick and silver streaked with black, and her strong face with its high cheekbones. Beautiful; forbidding. He wonders what she does for fun – or what she did, and if there was ever a time when she smiled.

_*_

_Playing poker with Mozo._

Nothing about Mozo is what it seems. His is the perfect poker face, blunt-featured, beetle browed, dull-eyed. You have to know him to appreciate his intelligence. His clumsy looking hands with their sausage fingers are nimble at pulling cards from his sleeve. He is willing to admit his tricks and teach them to Reno, because he would never cheat a co-worker. Mozo's quite the gentleman with the ladies, holding doors for them, draping his jacket around chilly slim shoulders. In the smokey backrooms of the upper city, where fortunes can be won and lost in a night, he sniffs out the wolves bent on fleecing the innocent and the naïve. His amusement is to cheat the cheat: it's kind of a private mission of his, his art, poker poetry. At the end of the night he lets an ace fall from his shirt cuff in full sight of the table. His target, enraged by such perfidy, seizes Mozo's collar and spits insults in his face – _swindler! Turk! - _until abruptly silenced by the cold barrel of Mozo's gun pressing against his ear.

Reno says, "One day you won't be the only one with a gun."

Mozo smiles. "I like to gamble."

*

_The problem with materia_

There's no pleasure without pain. They say that before Knox met Barbara he had a problem with materia; that he'd take unnecessary risks, even screw up on purpose, get himself hurt deliberately, for the sake of the Cure. Reno's heard the same story about other Turks: dead Turks. He can see how easily a taste for it might creep up on a man. In his opinion, the smart thing is to avoid getting too dependent on any one substance. That's the advice he gives the rookies.

Anyway, what they say about Knox is that he was as wild as anyone until he met Barbara. She made him clean up his act. Now that she's left and taken the kids with her, his partners watch him for signs of going off the rails, the way guys cut loose from their moorings often do.

Rosalind says that for Knox the move to the company housing is a blessing in disguise. It has to be better than living alone in the home he once shared with his family. Reno says families are a liability. That's just a fact. Rude observes that Knox seems to be holding it together OK. Mozo says, well, maybe he really believes that Barbara and the kids are better off where they are, better off without him. Is there any kind of pleasure, Mozo wonders, which could offset that pain?

*

_Rookies!_

Cavour is handsome in a coarse-grained kind of way. His black hair is thick and slightly oily; his large eyes are like a calf's eyes, liquid brown, with long dark lashes, and like an animal's eyes they hold no emotion. He's a good partner, focused, efficient, and deadly, following orders to the letter. Don Corneo knows how to train his men.

But the Don rules the slums with bare knuckles. Shinra wears a velvet glove. Cavour has had some trouble grasping the distinction. He doesn't seem to know the meaning of the word 'discrete'. Entrusted with the simple assassination of a Wuteng double-agent, he tracks his target down to a pavement café in the middle of a busy lunch-hour and sprays his brains over five tables full of customers; the whole department has to work overtime for the next three days in the scramble to cover up his error of judgement.

For his next mission, Veld partners him with Reno and sends them the two of them to Costa del Sol, to investigate reports that a woman matching Aviva's description of the AVALANCHE leader was recently treated in a clinic there. As usual, the lead goes nowhere; the patient turns out to be a local housewife and mother of three. Reno's ready to head home, but Cavour says he needs to go to the bank. While Reno's waiting outside, having a smoke, a boy comes past him - a flaxen-haired, pink-cheeked boy so pretty that at first glance Reno thinks he's a girl. The boy throws him a smile (one gold tooth among the ivory, flash of charm) and then goes into the bank; Reno catches a glimpse of a blue and black tattoo on the nape of the boy's neck. He finishes his cigarette, and is thinking about having another when he hears screaming inside the bank, followed by gunshots.

He goes in and sees a dozen people crouched against the far wall, covering their heads with their arms. The bank teller has her hands in the air. A man is writhing on ground near Reno, blood pulsing from the bullet wound in his thigh. Cavour and the pretty boy are facing each other, smoking pistols in hand. Reno wonders how a marksman like Cavour could have missed. Pretty Boy must be fast, though his aim is poor – from the angle of things, he's the one who shot the unlucky bastard dying slowly and noisily on the floor by Reno's feet.

Reno needs only a split-second to take all this in. Cavour glances his way. Pretty Boy takes advantage of Cavour's momentary distraction: with his left hand he throws a nunchuk at Cavour's head and knocks him out cold. _Oh, for God's sake_, thinks Reno, getting out his rod and casting a bolt at Pretty Boy that stuns him into immobility. He takes the boy's gun and ties his hands behind his back, using Cavour's tie.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," mumbles the boy through numb lips. "I didn't mean to hurt anybody. I just needed the money."

Reno gets a glass of water from the water cooler and throws it into Cavour's face. He moves swiftly over to the dying man, puts his fingers into the wound, digs out the bullet, Cures him. Cavour has come to, groaning. Reno lifts him to his feet and drags him from the bank before the grateful customers can mob them.

That afternoon, back in Midgar, Reno files his report. Tseng reads it and passes it on to Commander Veld, whose interest is immediately piqued. "So he dodged one of Cavour's bullets, eh?" he remarks to Tseng. "I think we need to take a look at this one."

Four weeks later, the Department's newest rookie starts work on patrol in Sector 8. He calls himself Skeeter. He says he's seventeen years old. From his fairness and the pale blue of his eyes they can see that he's a Northerner. Until two years ago, he tells them, he lived in Bone Village with his family, hunting for naturally-occurring materia and helping his parents run their shop. After they were killed in a mis-timed explosion, his brother threw him out, and since then he's been wandering around, trying to scratch a living any way he can. He blushes when he says this. It's easy to guess at some of the things such a pretty boy has had to do.

The other Turks take to Skeeter straight away. He has a friendly, open manner; he's enthusiastic and easy-going, full of admiration for them, and thankful to have been given such a chance. So they say, "Want us to sort out your brother for you?"

Skeeter is overwhelmed. "Oh, gee, thanks, guys. But really, no, it's OK. Everything's worked out for the best, hasn't it? I don't bear him any grudges. And he's still my brother, after all."

Skeeter's one to let bygones be bygones.

*

_Rosalind, letting her hair down_

Metaphorically speaking, because she keeps it bobbed at the line of her earlobes, which to Reno's eye has to be the unsexiest hairstyle ever invented. In their little family, Rosalind's the practical one, the one who always knows where to look for an answer to a question, the one who has memorized the contents of the company handbook, who can lend you a pen whenever you need one; the one who will iron Reno's shirts for him even though he keeps telling her that he _prefers_ his shirts unironed, that ironed shirts are stiff and scratchy. She simply ignores him. Unlike the rest of them, Rosalind has living relatives: a much younger sister called Elena, and a father who is the Head of Ballistics at the Military Academy in Junon. She was raised there, in the barracks. Whenever she refers to her father, which isn't often, she calls him Colonel Franks.

Rosalind never swears. She is usually the last person in the room to laugh at a joke. She doesn't even drink much, though under Rude's tutelage and Reno's encouragement, she's improving. Her shoes are always polished. She's often the one who gets left behind in the office when the others go out on missions, because she's so detail-oriented: she can spend all day sifting through intel reports and be as meticulous at the end as she was at the beginning.

She's also a dead shot with a handgun.

One day in the middle of June Reno has to come back to the Shinra Building to fetch a tool he left behind. As he steps out of the elevator he hears music: a popular song by one of Aviva's metal bands is playing on the radio. He takes a few steps towards the office. The door is open. What he sees stops him dead in his tracks.

Rosalind is dancing. She isn't just shuffling her feet from side to side, tapping her toe, no – she's whirling round, arms wide, kicking her heels up and swinging her hips as she sings along to the music.

Reno, thinking fast, returns to the elevator and goes back down to the mezzanine floor. From here he calls Rosalind and tells her he's coming up for something he forgot. "Tch," chides Rosalind, "It's lucky for you your head is attached to your shoulders."

*

_Aviva in motion_

Reno is running on the treadmill, but really he is watching her turn cartwheels and backflips and aerial somersaults all over the mats. Her body is perfect for this, flat-chested, compact, sinewy. She lands and rebounds as if she has springs built into her feet. Reno wishes he could bounce like that. He asks, "Where did you learn those moves?"

Unlike Mink, Aviva is always happy to chatter. "In the show. It was part of my act. I can throw knives while I turn somersaults. Want to see?"

There are no knives in the gym, so he gives her his shoes to use instead. One of them nearly hits him in the face. "Was killing your audience part of the act too?"

"Only sometimes," she laughs. Maybe she's serious.

"Did you travel around?"

"Yeah, a lot. None of those mining towns are rich. We'd play for a few days, then move on. Summer season we'd go to Costa. But Corel was our base."

"Pay any good?"

"I wasn't paid." She gives him a puzzled look. Like he should know this.

If he asked, she'd tell. In fact, he sometimes gets the feeling that she believes he knows all about her already. But he doesn't ask. He doesn't need her to tell him what a shovel-load of shit this world can be. The better question, the real question, would be how she manages to be so happy all the time. But maybe he was the same when he was fifteen. He thinks he was. He can't remember.

*

_Veld, angry_

In any case, age means nothing. The youngest Turks kill, with as little compunction as their elders, monsters of all kinds, four-legged and two-legged; thieves, liars, crooks, pirates, child-devourers; breakers of the peace; all enemies of Shinra, the ones that roar, the ones that plead, and the ones that fight back. During a raid on a black market weapons cache Cavour is shot in the chest; the bullet punctures his lung, but he lives, and spends two weeks in the infirmary. Down in the slum bar that Rude, Reno, and Mozo introduced him to, Skeeter's drink is spiked with poison, and only the bar owner's quick thinking (fear sharpens the mind wonderfully) gets the antidote down him in time.

Veld rarely does field work, but this is different. He brings Tseng and Reno with him to the bar. The owner is, if not happy, at least very willing to remember, in copious detail, who was in the bar that night and where they were sitting and what they did. The trail takes them fairly swiftly to the door of a man they have recently begun to suspect of involvement in the contraband materia trade. Veld knocks on the front door and asks to see him. The man chooses to leave by the back door instead, only to find Reno waiting for him round the corner. Reno pins him down and holds him there until Veld arrives. The man is making quite a noise, and a crowd is gathering. In what passes for broad daylight in Midgar, Veld shoots him through the back of the neck. Discretion is not desirable in this case, and explanations are not necessary: the witnesses to this execution will work out the reason for themselves.

It never ceases to amaze Reno how stupid some people can be.

*

_Surveillance Duty_

It's not just flowers that are blooming in the Church these days.

As far as Reno is concerned, spying on the Ancient has been, until recently, one of his job's more tedious chores. She never does anything interesting, and nothing worthy of report ever takes place to break up the monotony of her days. Her blithe acceptance of her lot, her sunny unquestioning contentment, have led him to assume she must be simple-minded. Certainly she has never given any sign that she's aware of his presence, whether he's watching her from up in the roof-beams, his face smeared with soot, a black woolly cap pulled over his beacon of hair, or following her through the monster-infested streets to ensure she reaches the safety of Elmyra Gainsborough's house. He has never spoken to her. That's the Boss's job. As far as she knows, Tseng is her only protector, or gaoler. According to Tseng, she claims not to know about any Promised Land. The Chief does not believe her. But Reno believes her. It's perfectly clear to him that Aerith knows practically nothing at all. Which, for someone raised in the slums, and a pretty girl at that, is itself a kind of miracle. One that she can thank Tseng for, if thanks are in order.

That's how it was, anyway, until the day Zack Fair came crashing into her life.

Her innocence has an electrical quality. Reno is not vulnerable to it, but he can see the effect it's having on Cissnei's lover. It's like a magnet, at once attracting him and yet holding him at bay. It is light and warmth, in a place without sunshine. It's all the things he joined SOLDIER to defend.

Of course, he doesn't know she's an Ancient. That's very highly classified information. The new Turks haven't been told, either. Not even the Board of Directors knows. There's always a risk the girl might decide to tell him herself, but Reno's willing to bet she won't. She's pretty self-conscious about the whole normality thing. The two of them discuss it a lot. Zack tells her normality is over-rated. The poor dumb chick has no idea she's being fed a line.

Meanwhile, Reno's caught up in his own dilemma. What should he do about Cissnei? Should he let her know? Should he keep his big mouth shut?

It's not like she's ever come right out and told him that she's sleeping with Zack, that she's in love with the target of her mission. Still, he's pretty sure that she knows that he knows. Her silence speaks volumes there. In fact, he reckons, he and Rude are almost certainly the only two who know anything about it. If Tseng and the Chief ever found out – if they even suspected she had a conflict of interests – they'd pull her out of SOLDIER faster than she could blink.

And Ciss can be so prickly. Suppose he, Reno, as a friend, did try to warn her – well, she'd be just as likely to kick him as thank him.

So maybe he should be smart for a change and keep it zipped. Maybe the whole sexless affair between the SOLDIER and the Ancient will fizzle out soon of its own accord. How long can a virginal teenager expect to hold the interest of a man like Zack, when he knows he's got a woman like Cissnei waiting for him upstairs? Maybe it'll all be OK….

Man, Cissnei sure picked the wrong time to go sashaying off round the planet with Director Lazard. While the cat's away…. Though Reno supposes she didn't have much choice. Why'd Lazard take her along, anyway? As a bodyguard? He has plenty of third classes for that. Why outsource to the Turks? Or maybe she volunteered to go so that Zack can discover how much he misses her when she's not around. If that's her plan, then she's miscalculated. Badly.

Somebody's going to get hurt. And it won't be the Ancient, holding Cissnei's lover effortlessly in her orbit. And it won't be that first class bastard Zack Fair. So who does that leave?

He should tell her.

He should mind his own business.

Bloody hell. This would all be so much, much easier if he didn't have an ulterior motive. If he didn't fancy Cissnei so badly himself.

If she wasn't his friend.

One night after surveillance duty Reno comes back late to the company housing with more than a few drinks inside him and sees Tseng's light shining under the door, and all at once he knows what he must do, so he knocks on the door and without waiting for an invitation opens it and falls into Tseng's room; as he hits the floor he catches a glimpse of Tseng sitting at the table, working on his laptop.

"Ow," says Reno.

He hears footsteps, feels Tseng looming over him.

"What do you want?" Tseng's voice is the voice of midnight and shadows.

"Boss," says Reno face down on the floor, "When you gonna do something about Zack Fair and the Ancient?"

Tseng takes hold of him by the armpits and hauls him into a sitting position. Then Tseng leans forward, so close that Reno goes cross-eyed trying to stay focused on the dot in the middle of his forehead. Tseng sniffs Reno's breath.

. "Bourbon," he says. "When did that start? I though you were a beer man."

"Beer tastes like puke. Whiskey tastes like fire. Now answer my question."

"But why should I do anything?" says Tseng, too quickly.

Reno wants to say _because she's yours_, but even after half a bottle of bourbon his sense of self-preservation is too strong.

"He makes her happy," Tseng adds, with the conviction of a man who has fought and won a long argument with himself.

"Happy? He's a two-timing shit. We could kill him, Boss. You and me. No one would ever know."

Tseng's response is to ignore this. He walks across the apartment to the kitchenette, fills a glass from the cold tap, and puts it into Reno's hand. "Drink," he says. "And listen. Whatever it is you think you know, you're wrong. Zack Fair's a decent guy. I've worked with him. He won't harm her. She doesn't have a very favourable impression of Shinra, but he may be able to change that. The Commander sees no need to intervene. That's all you need to know. Now – " Tseng takes hold of Reno by the upper arm and pulls. The Boss may look slight next to Mozo or Rude, but he's all muscle. Reno finds himself on his feet. A push sends him out the door. "Go to bed. Drink plenty of water. Try to be sober in the morning."

The door shuts and locks.

* * *

On the other side of the locked door, Tseng went to open a window. Reno was gone, but the smell of alcohol still lingered.

For some time Tseng had been at a loss to account for Reno's animosity towards Zack Fair. To the best of his knowledge, Reno hardly knew the SOLDIER. They had never been on a mission together. And Reno rarely felt strongly enough about anyone to dislike them. Indeed, this detachment of his was one of the qualities that made him a good Turk.

But just now the truth had dawned. Say what you liked about Reno, you had to admit he was loyal to his partners. He must have seen something he wasn't meant to see and had concluded, wrongly, that Zack was mistreating Cissnei. Tseng would have to speak to her about that. She couldn't start getting careless, not now. Too much was at stake.

Zack Fair. Something of a wild card, that young man. Throwing the best laid plans into disarray. Still, it could have been worse. Much worse.

Aerith was no longer a child, and she was beautiful, like her mother. Men turned to look at her when she walked through the streets. Tseng had seen them, though they had not seen him. Zack, on the other hand, could not be invisible if he tried. Having a SOLDIER First Class for a boyfriend cast a protective spell around Aerith that worked its magic even when neither Zack nor Tseng could be present to watch over her. So there was that to be grateful for.

She had called herself 'not normal' - yet she was in so many ways the most normal girl imaginable. She wanted a boyfriend; she wanted love. She wanted to dance and go to parties. Like every creature that drew breath, she wanted to live. If it hadn't been Zack it would have been some other boy, some Wall Market punk with pretty eyes and a sweet tongue, some wheeler-dealer bold enough to penetrate her defenses, some ducker and diver, thief and liar, the type that the slum bred like flies. At least Zack was an honest boy from a good home. The way he handled Aerith was almost reverent, as if he instinctively understood the real reason why she was always to be found in the church. So there was that to be grateful for, too.

Zack had many admirable qualities. Tseng had worked with him, and studied him, in Banora and on several other missions, and had come to know him much better than Zack would have suspected from the minimal conversation they exchanged. For a First Class, he was remarkably modest; that was probably the legacy of Angeal. He was forthright, sincere, respectful, obedient, ambitious - and clueless. How long he would stay that way was of course another question, but for now, it was something else to be grateful for.

* * *

_Author's note: Skeeter is Turk J, male, nunchuk._


	13. Aviva Screws Up

**_CHAPTER 13: AVIVA SCREWS UP  
In which Aviva exercises her own judgement, Cloud briefly reappears, and Tseng and Veld are forced to confront an unwelcome truth_**

**

* * *

**

**_ On July 28th, 2001, Aviva screwed up. Veld had been wondering when this would happen._**

She was so good in so many ways; she was quick, resilient, skillful and resourceful. But she had a tendency to form her own judgments, to think in terms of right and wrong, good guys and bad guys, not understanding yet that in Midgar such terms were meaningless. If she did not grow up fast, she would make herself unhappy, and become a danger to herself and everyone around her.

Her orders had been crystal clear, yet she had deliberately disobeyed them. It was a good thing she was willing to admit it. This admission went some little way towards mitigating her offense; Veld deeply disliked having to call on witnesses to his Turks' transgressions. Nevertheless, the consequences of her failure were likely to be far-reaching. She had saved one life today, but at the cost of how many in the future? Hadn't she, in fact, really been thinking of herself? She had been self-indulgent; sentimental.

Aviva hardly needed the beating. Her Commander's words cut deeper. He had believed in her, rescued her, given her work worth doing, made her proud of herself, and she'd failed him. In the middle of the floor she stood with her hands hanging at her sides, stoop-shouldered, wracked by shuddering sobs, her mouth a miserable circle and her eyes swollen with tears.

It would have been so easy and, one might say, natural, to scoop her up and give her a hug and say _there now, sweetheart, don't cry, you're a good girl._

But Midgar was nothing if not unnatural. And she was not, could not be, a good girl, not if she was to be any use to him. Not if she was going to survive.

Veld locked her in the punishment cell.

What she never knew was how long he sat there on the other side of the door, his hand over his face, remembering another girl not so much younger than Aviva, battering against the door of the bedroom where he had banished her – for what, he couldn't remember. Insolence, maybe, or some dangerous stunt.

He had failed to save his daughter. He wouldn't fail again. Turks did not fail. Midgar was a sewer of a city, a place where the trash floated to the top, where dogs ate dogs and rats ate their fellow rats and feral children fought one another for the scraps. It was impossible to save them all. Even amongst those who deserved to be saved, most had been, would be, drowned. But Veld would not let his Turks sink. He would preserve Aviva, and all of them, in this ark he had built with his own hands, the good ship Department of Administrative Research.

*

Tseng had left the building, so when Aviva's time in the cooler was up Veld called down to the office for someone to let her out, and got Reno.

"Is this like a promotion, Chief? 'Cause if it is, I think we should be talking pay rise."

"I'm not in the mood for your humour this morning. Just go get her."

Being the one who unlocked the door felt strange to Reno; actually, it _did _feel like a promotion. Aviva shrank from the light, curling tighter into herself.

"Veev, you have to come out of there sometime."

"Leave me alone! I'm never coming out! I wish I was dead!"

"Sure you do," he said, reaching in to drag her out by the ankle. It was like trying to hold on to a fish. She kicked and wriggled and struggled. Eventually he pulled her into the blue light. The fight went out of her, and she lay on her back on the floor, an arm flung over her eyes.

"How're you feeling?" he asked.

"I hate myself!" Her small body shook from head to foot, with passion and maybe also with pain. "I _hate_ myself! I'm useless!"

Reno squatted down beside her. "Come on, don't make such a drama out of it."

"That's easy for _you_ to say! You didn't hear what he _said_! You don't know what it's _like_!"

Reno made a sound that was part laugh, part snort. Where had she picked up this mistaken impression of him? "Veev, I've been in here more times than I can count."

That made her calm down a little. "_You_? But why?"

"First time was the day the Chief hired me. Next time was when I re-wired the elevators so they'd only stop alternately at the mezzanine and Mayor Domino's floor. Seemed like a good idea at the time," he grinned. "I think we still have the tapes somewhere. Last time was just before you joined us. I set fire to the Sector Seven slums. That wasn't on purpose. Anyway, you get the idea. You want to tell me what happened?"

He knew the basic facts of the failed mission already: Tseng had given them an outline at the morning's briefing. As Commander Veld had predicted, AVALANCHE had finally struck again yesterday afternoon, their target a data disk containing top secret information on the SOLDIER program. This disk had been stored in the archive vaults buried below the Sector Seven slums, but because of its sensitive nature the President had taken the decision to transfer it back to Headquarters, where security had been significantly tightened since Hollander's raid. Dr Samira Rayleigh, a young scientist from Hojo's team, was sent to fetch it, and a troop of Heidegger's grunts had gone along as her escort. Veld had insisted one of his Turks be included in the party. As usual, his instincts were right: AVALANCHE had attacked them en masse at the train station, using a new kind of operative, black-clad, highly-trained, and very dangerous. Aviva and the grunts had managed to battle their way onto the train with Dr Rayleigh and the disk, but AVALANCHE pursued them, and in the fight that followed all but one of the grunts had been killed. At some point Dr Rayleigh had become separated from the disk. Torn between recovering the disk and saving Dr Rayleigh, Aviva and the surviving grunt had chosen Rayleigh. The disk was now in the hands of AVALANCHE, and there was hell to pay upstairs.

Reno smoked a cigarette while she told the story. At the end she said, "I just – I see now it was selfish, but I just didn't want him to think I was a bad person."

"Who? Heidegger's guy?"

"He was the same one who was in the helicopter with us when we went to Junon."

"Yeah?" said Reno. "I've seen him around. The spikey blond one. He's quite the survivor."

"He's awesome with a sword. Dr Rayleigh and I would both be dead if it wasn't for him. He told me he wants to be in SOLDIER but they won't take him because he's too short."

"That's too bad," said Reno, "Because he'd fit right in. Nobody in SOLDIER knows how to obey an order."

"It was my orders to save the disk, not his," Aviva protested. "His orders were to protect Dr Rayleigh. But we couldn't do both. And he said that people were more important than things. And I didn't know what to do. What he said sounded right. She was screaming for help. Disks don't scream for help. I couldn't just cold-bloodedly let them kill her. It seemed like I had no choice. I thought I was doing what was best."

"So don't think so hard next time," said Reno. "That's what the Chief is for. Seriously, Veev. Once you start second-guessing what the grunts and the typing pool and the goddamn _tea lady _think you should do, you're dead. We don't have time for that kind of crap."

Aviva sighed. "I love this job so much. But you know what I _hate? _ I hate that nobody ever thanks us for what we do." She stared down sadly at the floor.

This conversation, Reno decided, was becoming entirely too heavy. It was time to change the subject. "So, anyway, that blond grunt of yours – what's his name?"

"Cloud."

"Uh-huh? So. Cloud. You like him, don't you?"

Her face grew hot. "No! He just – seems like a nice guy."

"You seemed to like him a lot in the helicopter."

"I was just talking to him. Passing the time."

"Uh-huh. So, who do you like, then? How about Rufus Shinra? He's your age. Bet you fancy him , don't you?"

"I never – "

"Aw, come on. All the nice girls love Rufus. Blue eyes, blond hair, cute bum, and all that gil - "

"No! He's just a boy!"

She was looking a little flustered. It was quite endearing. Pleased with his handiwork, Reno pressed on: "Just a boy, eh? So you like someone older? Is it one of those guys on your LOVELESS posters?"

"Stop it!"

"Wait, I know - It's Sephiroth, isn't it?"

"Now you're just teasing me," she said firmly, though her cheeks were still scarlet and she could not meet his eye. "I don't like anybody. Really. Final word."

"C'mon, Veev, you can trust me. You know in your heart of hearts you want to tell. It's written all over your face. Come on. I can keep a secret."

"That's not what Rosalind says. She warned me not to tell you anything that I didn't want the whole of Shinra to know."

"Is that right?" he laughed, jumping to his feet. "I think I need a word with her. " He grabbed Aviva's wrist. "C'mon, witness, let's go."

_*_

_From the pages of Aviva's diary, 29__th__ June 2001_

_ZOMG!!!! That was a close one!!!!!!!!I thought my heart would EXXXXPLOOOODE!!_

*

Night had fallen. Searchlights fingered the swollen bellies of the clouds that shrouded the Shinra Building. Tseng was standing by the window in Veld's office, watching as the Commander paced back and forth, growling.

"How did they know?" Veld demanded. "The mission was S-level classified. Not even Dr Rayleigh knew what was on the disk she was moving. How did AVALANCHE know we'd be making the transfer today? And where to intercept us?"

Suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks. Throwing a quick look over his shoulder at the security camera, he gestured for Tseng to sit at the desk, and then sat himself down on the opposite side. He took a notepad and a pencil and scribbled something, then turned the notepad onto its face and pushed it across the desktop to Tseng.

Checking to make sure his head was blocking the security camera, Tseng picked up the notepad and read: Someone high up inside Shinra is passing information to AVALANCHE.

He nodded, wrote something, turned it over, pushed it back.

Veld read: _Yes. Who?_

He wrote: _Someone with access to S-level info. Suspects?_

Tseng wrote: _The Board of Directors_

Veld wrote: _And me. And you._


	14. Some Dreams Are Not Easy to Wake From

_**CHAPTER FOURTEEN: SOME DREAMS ARE EASIER TO WAKE FROM THAN OTHERS  
In which Aviva makes a resolution, and Cissnei has some news for Reno **_

_

* * *

_

_Page from Aviva's diary, August 17__th__ 2001_

…_Last night I had the most terrible dream. I dreamed that this is a dream, my life here with Shinra. In my nightmare, I woke up back in my old room in Corel feeling so afraid, and I said, oh no, oh no, I'm not really a Turk, it was just a dream. Then I heard a voice saying, no, __this__ is the bad dream, and then I woke up for real all covered in sweat, and I realized I was still in Midgar in my own bed, in my own apartment, with Roz asleep in the apartment next to me and Mr Tseng in the apartment on the other side, and I thought THANK GOD, I'M SAFE. _

_ I try really hard not to, but sometimes I remember that stupid thing I did the day I started work here. The thought of it makes me go hot and cold all over. I was__ so__scared.__ I was convinsed the Chief would realize what a big mistake he made hiring me - I was just waiting for him to come tell me I'd got it all wrong and was too cheap and stupid to be a Turk and he was going to send me back to Corel where I belonged. Probably it was a lucky thing Mr Tseng hadn't given me my gun already because I was so desparate I think I might have shot myself. And then I would have never known R, and I'd have missed all this!_

_ The Chief was so kind. They were all so kind. I'd been expecting anything but kindness. No one's ever mentioned it. It's like some other person did it. Not me. The Chief said that was how it would be. He said to me that I was in a new life now and I could let go of the old one. And he said that he couldn't promise I'd like everything he asked me to do, but that he __could__ promise that I would always be valued. Isn't that beautiful? I hope one day someone writes it on my tombstone._

_ I never want to let him down again, never, never, never…._

_*_

At the end of August Reno was surprised to get a telephone call from Cissnei. When he heard her voice on the other end of the line, his hands began to tremble.

She said, "Are you busy? Can you meet me at the Goblins? I'm at the table in the corner."

"Are you OK?"

"Yeah. Just come."

No prizes for guessing what this was about. He wanted to run to her. His heart was pounding as if he'd already run there and run back and run there again. But he didn't want to rouse suspicion. Rude was looking at him shrewdly behind those purple-tinted lenses.

"Just going for a smoke," he said, standing up.

Cissnei was waiting for him at a table in the darkest part of the bar. "Your hair," she said. "It's like sending up a flare to announce your entrance. Look, I got you a beer."

He sat down opposite her. "You haven't called me for months. What's wrong?"

She was fiddling with the beer mat, would not meet his eye. "I'm going overseas. For quite a while. A year, maybe. On an extended assignment."

Had the Chief found out? he wondered. Was this her punishment? Aloud he said, "Overseas? Again? Where now?" working hard all the time to keep his face from giving anything away.

"I'm sorry, Reno. I just can't – I can't tell you anything about it."

"Is it with Lazard? For SOLDIER?"

"That mission's been compromised. The Chief's pulled me."

It was as he'd thought, then.

He managed a credible, "Why?"

"Look – you might as well know…." She was bending the beer mat back and forth, breaking it slowly down the middle. "No, that's not fair. I _want_ to tell you. Oh, let's not pretend, Reno. I know you know about Zack and me. Don't you?"

He took a deep breath. "Yeah."

"Well, it's all over. He's dumped me."

She was so beautiful. So beautiful and desirable and hot. And the longing he'd had to smash Zack's face in when she looked happy was like nothing compared to the urge he now felt to kill Zack for making her so sad.

"You're worth ten of her," he said.

Cissnei's head jerked up. "Who?"

"Well, that Ancient – "

"Does _everyone_ know?"

"Ciss – we all do surveillance duty."

Shreds of beer mat were scattered over the table. Cissnei hadn't touched her drink. She said angrily, "Who else knows about him and me?"

"No one. Just Rude. I told him. I saw you at that party – that's how I knew."

"I know. Zack told me he saw you there. That's how I knew you knew. And also, because you stopped calling me."

She picked up another beer mat and began tearing it to pieces. "It was that terrible day, the day you were trapped on the elevator. That's when it started to go wrong. He'd never seen me working anywhere but in the office before. I never… well, I never told him that I _wasn't_ a Turk, but usually I didn't wear the suit. Lazard likes women to wear dresses. And he never asked – "

"You mean he didn't know?"

Cissnei sighed. "Yeah, stupid me. How could I have thought he'd never find out? Anyway, that day…. The Chief sent me out to fight the crazy robots, but I can't fight in a dress, so I went to our lockers and got changed and got my weapon. I probably wasn't thinking straight. I was so worried about you, you tit. So then I went off after those one-winged things, remember? And then he showed up, and Tseng came, and you guys left, and… Oh God, his face. He said, _you're a Turk?_ Like I'd told him I was a child molester or something. And Tseng was looking at me – you know the way he does. So I thought, shit, cat's out of the bag now. And then Tseng sent me off to deal with the Genesis copies, and Zack followed me, and… I don't know, Reno. I think I must be the dumbest bitch alive. I was attacked by one of the clones and he tried to help me and I said "No!" because I wanted to show off. _Show off. _That I can fight as good as he can. I must need my fucking head examined. Then we had some asinine conversation about wings and freedom and how the clones weren't monsters." Cissnei sighed. "And then he has to go falling out of Reactor Five right into her flower bed. So up there," she flicked a hand, "We have a bloodstained monster-killing Turk in a suit, and down here, a beautiful shining angel in a frilly dress. So that was it for me."

"Ciss, don't do this to yourself."

"Don't get me wrong," she said. "He wasn't – unkind. I mean, the sex was good. I think he'll miss that. And to be fair, he was honest about it. He said he couldn't be with me any more because of his feelings for her. Of course like an idiot I said, _what does she make you feel that I don't? _And he said, _when I'm with you I feel like a boy, but when I'm with her I feel like a man. _I guess I deserved that."

"But she's just a kid."

She looked at him wildly. "Have they - ?"

"Not as far as I know. It would be in the reports."

"The reports." She shuddered. "Every word. Every step. Every kiss. I never understood before how awful it must be. To have somebody watching everything you do. Reno, you wouldn't….? No, no," she shook her head with a grimace of disgust. "It's just a matter of time anyway. He's crazy about her, and he – he's so _driven_. I never told him about her. I mean, that she's an Ancient. Does he know? Does he know she's being watched?"

"You've been out of the office a while, haven't you? You should give us more credit."

"You're right," she said, her mouth beginning to tremble again. "I'm sorry. I feel like such a failure. And I've wrecked the goddamned mission too, and the Chief is so pissed with me. It's like I can't do anything right. And Aerith can do no wrong. Aerith doesn't compete with him. Aerith is _afraid _of monsters. Aerith feels so safe when he's around. Aerith doesn't swear or drink or get blood on her face when she kills people. She's kind of a nice girl that way."

"For fuck's sake, Ciss, it's not like Zack teaches nursery school for a living."

Cissnei gasped, and all of a sudden she was laughing in an astonished kind of way, laughing and crying and rubbing her face with her hands, smearing the tears everywhere. Her eyes were red and her nose was running and she _still _looked gorgeous. He wished he had a handkerchief to give her. Mozo and Rude would not have been so badly equipped. So he stood up and offered the only thing he had – the tail of his shirt. She stared at him, really focusing on his face for the first time that night, and snorted with laughter.

"Oh, Reno, how I do so fucking love you. I'm not going to blow my snot all over your dirty shirt, so sit down."

"I'll get some toilet paper," he said.

All the way to the bathroom, and all the way back, he was warning himself, _whatever you do, don't say it. Because she doesn't want to hear it. All she wants is a shoulder to cry on._

When he came back, she had managed to pull herself together a little, and was tidying her hair with a comb. He gave her the wad of paper. She dipped it into the beer, to dampen it, and while she cleaned her face all he could think of was licking those tearstains from her salty cheeks and kissing those red swollen lips –

"Zack's crazy," he blurted, "You are the hottest thing in Midgar."

He heard himself saying this, and the sane part of his mind shouted _You idiot!_

She batted her eyelids at him. "You sure know how to cheer a girl up."

Did she think he didn't mean it? Then he might yet cover up his clumsy confession. He could turn it into a joke, make her laugh.

But his big mouth wanted its own way and it said, "No. Seriously."

She saw that he did mean it. He watched the realisation take hold of her: first surprise, then alarm, then dismay. Her look became guarded; she folded her arms over her chest, pulled herself in like a wary animal crouching down in the grass. He could have kicked himself.

"Are you coming on to me?" she asked quietly.

"No," he said; and then, accepting that the damage was done and it was useless to backpedal any longer: "All right, yes. Sort of."

She put her hand over her mouth and stared at him, round-eyed. Almost anything would have been better than that look – a box on the ears, a kick in the teeth, a knife through the heart.

In a voice barely more than a whisper, she said, "What do you take me for?"

What kind of question was that? How was he supposed to answer it? "Nothing – I mean – I just had to say it, Ciss – " He reached out a hand to her.

"Don't touch me," she spat, recoiling. "Do you think I'm desperate?"

_ Ouch_. Low blow. "No – I just meant – "

"What's wrong with you?" She wasn't whispering now. "I've just lost the love of my life and I'm sitting here pouring my soul out to someone I thought was my best friend, only to discover that the whole time all he's been thinking of is how long it'll take him to get into my knickers."

"That's not true. I – "

"I should have known better. Everything's just one big joke to you, isn't it? No - don't talk to me. Don't you fucking speak another word." She stood up forcefully. "I'm leaving." He pushed his chair back to go after her, but she whirled round, turning on him a face as savage as a wounded cuahl. "Don't you follow me. Keep away from me. I'm warning you. At this precise moment I feel like the thing I want most in the world is to kill somebody, and right now you are at the top of my list, you false friend, you – you - stupid - _prick_."

He let her go. Or no, that wasn't quite true. All the rest of that day and the days that followed, as he played the scene over and over again in his head, he saw himself standing there, helplessly watching while she elbowed her way through the crowded bar, and all the time, even after she was gone, and for days and weeks thereafter, he was waiting for the right words to come to him, the ones that would put everything right, turn everything around. But the end was always the same. Cissnei was gone. He had blown it.


	15. By Helicopter to Modeoheim

**CHAPTER 15: BY HELICOPTER TO MODEOHEIM  
_In which Tseng reflects on Zack and Angeal, and a lengthy flashback reveals the truth about his_ _complicated association with Aerith.  
[This chapter incorporates the revised version of 'Tseng's backstory'.] _**

**

* * *

**

Veld thought, and Tseng agreed with him, that Zack Fair's relationship with Aerith Gainsborough did not pose any immediate danger to the company. His relationship with Angeal Hewley, however, was another matter.

Though publicly pronounced killed in action, Angeal was still very much alive. The Board knew this. The Turks knew it. Sephiroth and Lazard knew it. Even the fanclub girls suspected something. And Zack knew it. He had seen Angeal with his own eyes, and his conscience was troubled.

To Tseng's mind, the Science Department was barking up the wrong tree with their research into Ancients and Jenova Cells and clones and superwarriors. What they really needed to invent was a drug to silence that small inner voice whispering the knowledge of good and evil. Training could only do so much. Alcohol, tobacco, materia, drugs, sex: all were tried, in various combinations. None were permanent solutions.

Zack believed Angeal had the answers. In reality, though, Angeal was part of the problem – perhaps, thought Tseng, the most dangerous part. The Second and Third classes had never loved Genesis. They did not really love Sephiroth, that coldly remote and lonely figure, and they did not really want to be like him, though they went in awe of him. But they loved Angeal, because he had loved them, and they wanted to be Angeal, because he had given so much of himself to them. To put it another way, none of them would have been entirely surprised to learn that Genesis was a monster in disguise; a monster of vanity, one might say. But Angeal? Easier to believe that they themselves were the monsters...

Tseng's necessarily pragmatic view of Zack Fair – namely, that he was to be encouraged and protected as long as he was of service to the company and liquidated if he became a threat – was tempered by a degree of fellow feeling. Like Zack, he knew how it felt to have been singled out for favour: for harder training, more punishing missions, greater demands, and no excuses. He too had been lucky enough to have as a mentor a man he could admire and seek to emulate: a man with clear principles and strength of character; a man who excelled at his work. A decent human being. Such men were rare in Shinra. Or, indeed, anywhere.

According to Cissnei, Zack believed that Angeal intended to return to SOLDIER once the crisis with Genesis had been resolved. She said Angeal had told Zack so himself. This was one of the few useful pieces of information to have emerged from the debacle of her mission to SOLDIER. Tseng wondered, though, whether Angeal could really be so naïve. He bore upon his body the outward manifestation of the secret experiment that had made him; this manifestation, the wing, could not be hidden or removed. According to Hojo, to whom Veld had gone for advice, if the wing was amputated it would regrow. Angeal must know that Shinra would never allow their SOLDIERs to see this. It was bad enough that Zack had seen it, that single great white wing like a swan's wing unfurling from Angeal's shoulderblade. Anyone who saw it would be forced to start asking themselves questions about how Angeal had got that way, and what exactly Shinra had done to him; and from there it was only a small step to wonder, _What is Shinra doing to us? To me?_

Angeal would have to be eliminated. Tseng had been ordered to do it. Angeal trusted nobody but Zack, and therefore Tseng would have to use Zack to get close enough to Angeal to kill him. Zack could not be told, of course; he must think that they were on a mission to find the home base of the Genesis copies. Tseng intended to fulfil his mission quickly, out of respect for what remained of Angeal's humanity. If at all possible he hoped to avoid, for Aerith sake, for Shinra's sake, the need to kill Zack too.

They would go by helicopter to Modeoheim.

*

Zack was not in the building, but Tseng could guess where he had gone. He told the helicopter pilot to put him down at the Church. Sure enough, he hadn't been waiting many minutes before Zack showed up.

"Let's go," said Tseng. "I need you in Modeoheim."

Zack pushed past him, making for the church door. "I know. Just give me a minute."

"Aerith isn't there."

That brought him up sharply. He folded his arms and gave Tseng a long look. Probably he thought he looked intimidating.

"Problem?" asked Tseng.

"How is it that you know Aerith?"

"It's…. complicated."

For if he were to tell the Zack the whole story – which he had no intention of doing, ever – he would have to go back to the very beginning….

* * *

Tseng had been, by Veld's reckoning, perhaps nine years old when Aerith came into his life. He had been living in the Shinra building for as long as he could remember, a polite little savage in a school uniform, a wild thing tamed to no hand but the Commander's and already steeped in the ways of secretiveness. The cafeteria ladies and the receptionists at the front desk had long given up trying to tease a smile from the boy. Tseng's smile was the baring of teeth.

He slept in a corner of Veld's back office, took his showers in the staff lockers, ate his meals in the canteen…. Not a normal life for a child, by any stretch of the imagination. Not the kind of upbringing that Zack, with his mom and pop back on the family farm, would understand. But Tseng could imagine no other; nor would he have wished for a normal childhood even if he'd known what it was. A life without the Commander did not bear thinking of.

_It's complicated…. _

Because everything connected with Commander Veld was complicated. A spider's-web of connections; labyrinthine intricacies. And there was an irony in that, when one considered that Veld was a man who had striven to simplify his life by dividing it into compartments: Midgar; Kalm. Shinra; family. Love; duty.

_ Where do I fit in? _the child Tseng had often wondered.

He had never met Mrs Veld or the girl Felicia, or seen a photograph of them. Veld's desk and his walls were bare. As an adult Tseng could look back and wonder about this. Knox, the only other family man whom he knew at all well, put pictures of his children up everywhere. Veld never spoke of his family, not when he had them, and not after he lost them. Had he ever mentioned to his wife and daughter that he was raising in his office in Midgar a boy whom he'd picked up off the streets? The answer, Tseng guessed, was probably no.

_A man's loved ones are his hostages to fortune. _That was what Veld used to say, when discussing the best way to put pressure on a target. So perhaps the reason he had kept his family private – fenced them in, boxed them in, no trespassing – was to keep them safe. If nobody knew what his wife and child looked like, they could not be easily identified or kidnapped. As far as Tseng had been able to discover, no one in Shinra had ever been invited to Veld's home in Kalm, old Kalm, Kalm before the firestorm. Not even Reeve Tuesti, or that comrade of Veld's youth, Vincent Valentine, whose battered and faded ID card Tseng had found years ago in the archives. _Dead now, long dead_, the Commander had said, putting the card into his breast pocket. 

Thus, the first time Tseng met Aerith and her mother, he jumped immediately to the conclusion that they were Mrs Veld and Felicia, even though he knew that Felicia was not a baby. He knew this because he had once, just once, happened to overhear the Commander on the phone to his wife, and mention had been made of Felicia's twelfth birthday. But Tseng's jealousy was stronger than his reason.

He had come home from school that day with the usual bruises and scrapes, same old story; he did not complain, and the Commander only said "I hope the other fellow looks worse", and since the other fellow did indeed look worse (had lost two teeth, in fact) Tseng nodded, and the Commander ruffled his hair and said, "Come along with me, there's someone I want you to meet."

In those days the Shinra building was still in the process of being constructed; the President's office and the boardroom were on the twenty-second floor, and the Department of Administrative Research was on the twenty-third. Together Tseng and the Commander rode the elevator up to the twenty-eighth floor, where Tseng had thought there was nothing but store-rooms. Stepping out of the elevator, he saw three infantrymen standing guard outside a door. The Commander knocked, and the door was opened by a slight, brown-haired woman holding a tiny baby in her arms.

_It's them_, thought Tseng with a pang of dismay.

The woman ushered them inside, and the Commander told him to sit. The sofa was Shinra blue, like the banquettes in the rest areas, and the floor tiles were standard Shinra issue. _This apartment was a storeroom_, Tseng realized, _and it's been fixed up for them. Fixed up in a hurry. _

On the windowsill stood a row of potted plants – herbs of some kind. Tseng knew they were real and not plastic because he could smell them.

"Coffee?" asked the woman. "Tea for us both," said the Commander, "With milk and sugar."

The woman said to Tseng, "Hold Aerith for me," and put the baby in his arms.

Her name was Aerith? Not Felicia? Relief, sudden and complete, washed over him. Of course! Felicia was a big girl. This wasn't the Commander's family; that woman wasn't Mrs Veld. How could he have been so stupid? Allowing his feelings to get the upper hand, making unfounded assumptions; when would he break himself of those bad habits? The Commander would give him a good clip round the ear, or worse, if he knew what Tseng had been thinking.

But he didn't know, so everything was all right. Tseng could relax. He didn't have to be afraid, not right now. He didn't have to brace himself for the worst. He could even let his guard down a little, and take a look at this strange object, this baby, this hot little squirming bundle that had been dumped unceremoniously in the clumsy crook of his elbow.

Tseng had never held a baby before. He had never _seen_ a baby before, not up close. Somehow he'd imagined it would be bigger. This baby's whole head fit into the cup of his hand. He could enclose her tiny fist in his. A strong pulse could be seen beating under the skin at the top of her skull, and over it her dark hair was fine as thistledown. How could something so small be so complete in every detail? Intricate ears – thick eyelashes – sharp pink nails. He turned over one of her hands to look closely at the pads of her fingers, marveling at the minute, clearly-etched, whorling fingerprints.

The baby's hand closed round his thumb and held on tight.

He whispered to the Commander, "She has such old eyes."

"All babies look like that," Veld replied softly. "As if they're born knowing everything. And then, we forget."

Tseng's mouth twitched in an attempt at a smile.

Aerith smiled a gummy smile in return, delighted and fearless. Tseng's heart gave a painful throb, as if it had suddenly grown too big for the cage of its ribs.

"She seems to have taken a shine to you," said the Commander, putting his hand on Tseng's shoulder.

The woman was still busy in the kitchen. "Who are they?" Tseng asked in an undertone.

"The woman is Mrs Gast. Ifalna Gast. Aerith is her daughter. She's about two months old."

"What are they doing here?"

At that moment the woman returned with a tray of tea, and so the Commander never answered Tseng's question. Hearing her mother's voice, the baby began to fuss. Tseng felt alarmed, thinking he must have mishandled her in some way.

"It's all right," said Mrs Gast. "She's just hungry. Give her to me."

Mrs Gast unbuttoned her blouse and put the baby to suck on her breast. Deeply embarrassed, Tseng's face reddened; he shifted uneasily in his seat. Seeing his discomfort, Mrs Gast said, "You can turn on the television if you like."

The television was on the other side of the room. Tseng found a children's cartoon. He pitched the sound at a volume loud enough to deceive the adults, but low enough to enable him to eavesdrop, then settled himself on the floor and pretended to be absorbed by the show.

As he expected, it wasn't long before the adults began to talk about him. Mrs Gast was curious. Strangers always were. She wanted to know where Tseng lived (on the executive floor, the twenty-first: he had a bed and a cupboard all to himself behind a row of filing cabinets. He had his own keycard, too, and he had never once lost it). But then where, she asked, did he go to school? (Midgar Junior Military Academy, Sector Seven. Motto: survival of the fittest.)

She said, "So do you mean to make a Turk of him, Piet?"

"He's bright," said the Commander. "He has potential. And he's tough, my God."

"He would need to be," said Mrs Gast. "It can't be easy for him."

Tseng knew exactly what she was referring to. Though he tried his best to avoid ever catching sight of his own reflection, occasionally he fell victim to an ambush, his features leaping out at him from a lamplit windowpane, or someone's mirrored sunglasses, to take him by surprise with a forcible reminder that he looked nothing like the Commander – or anyone else in Shinra, for that matter. Everything about his appearance was alien, wrong. The white skin - the high cheekbones - the slanted black eyes and the delicate mouth - the silky dark hair growing back from a widow's peak, all suggested allegiances Tseng did not feel, a language he could not speak, a history he wanted no part of.

"What happened to his parents?" asked Mrs Gast.

Veld shrugged.

"How did he end up in Midgar?"

"I don't know," said Veld, in a tone that implied, _does it matter?_

"And this?" she asked. From the corner of his eye Tseng could see Mrs Gast pointing at her own forehead.

"A tattoo?" suggested Veld. "I don't know its significance."

Tseng didn't know either. All he knew was that no amount of soap could scrub it off. It seemed to be made of indelible ink, pressed into his skin by someone's smudgey little finger. Whose? The woman who bore him? And why? To mark him? To claim him? No – he refused to be claimed. At school they accused him of being from Wutai but it was not true. He was from Midgar. Shinra was his home. He belonged to the Commander.

"When I found him," said Veld, "All he knew was his name. He was living rough on the streets."

How old had he been? Four, perhaps. That was the Commander's guess. There was no way of knowing for sure.

Mrs Gast said softly, "And he is only one of so many. Poor boy."

"He doesn't need your pity, Ifalna."

"Then what does he need? Why have you brought him here, Piet?"

At this point both the adults suddenly realized that the object of their discussion was listening intently. The Commander therefore leaned forward to whisper his answer in Mrs Gast's ear. She gazed meditatively into space; her eyes came to rest on Tseng for a moment, and he saw, or imagined he saw, such a terrible sadness there, which he supposed was for his sake. Then she closed her eyes, and when she opened them again and looked down at her daughter, the sadness was gone. Aerith had fallen asleep at her mother's breast. Mrs Gast laid the baby on her lap and made herself decent, buttoning the blouse with one hand.

"It's time for Aerith's nap," she said. "You'd better go. But come again – come and see us, Tseng, whenever you like."

He did not believe she meant it. Most grown-ups, with the exception of the Commander and his men, said things they did not mean and made promises they had no intention of keeping. And when had he, Tseng, with his alien face, ever been welcomed anywhere, except among Veld's Turks? They were his friends. They understood him, just as they understood a lot of other things without needing to be told. The Turks didn't try to play with him. They didn't waste his time telling him stupid jokes and then looking annoyed when he failed to laugh. They didn't even deliberately try to teach him anything. They simply let him be. When he came into their office (_hey there, squirt)_, they allowed him to sit beside their desks and watch what they were doing. It might be hacking into a website, or priming a bomb's timer. If he asked, they let him try it for himself. They didn't criticize him when he failed or praise him when he succeeded. A quiet, "You're all right," was as much as they would offer. If one of them was going to the shooting range or the gym, Tseng was invited along (_wanna come, kid?)_, and if Tseng felt like watching, he could watch. If he felt like shooting or punching, the Turk would show him how to do it, and then leave him alone.

In those days, Knox and Natalya were the rookies.

Sometimes one of the Commander's Turks failed to come back from a mission. Then they would drink even more than they normally did (the crate of empties in the kitchen was always full) and talk more and laugh more loudly for a day or two. Tseng had realized early on that it was important not to allow himself to get too attached to any of them. One hostage to fortune was enough.

So it wasn't that Tseng was lonely, exactly. All the same, there came a day, a week or two after he first met Aerith, when the Commander was away on business, and all the Turks were out on missions, and he had finished his homework, when he began to think about the baby and feel that he would like to hold her again. So he got in the elevator and rode up to the 28th floor, and knocked shyly, and Mrs Gast smiled when she saw him and said, "I'm glad you came. Aerith's just woken up. We're going to have supper. Do you want to join us? Why don't you take her while I set the table?"

He held Aerith up against his shoulder, supporting her head with one hand as Mrs Gast had showed him. Her warm breath tickled his neck. He breathed deeply, inhaling her scent.

"She smells spicey," he observed.

He thought she smelled marvelous, heavenly, but he was careful to keep emotion out of his voice.

"I know," said Mrs Gast. "Like gingerbread. Aren't babies wonderful?"

She served him a casserole made of cheese, vegetables, and noodles, more delicious than anything he had ever tasted. Afterwards, he helped clear the table without being asked, and dried the dishes while she washed. When everything was tidied away, she let him sit cross-legged on the sofa and hold the sleeping baby, while she sat in the armchair under the blue light, knitting a tiny sweater and telling him legends from the days when the planet was young. The magic of her words brought the past to life in his imagination; it was almost as if she'd been there, seen the events she was describing with her own eyes.

Never in all the cold hard world, which was all he knew, had he imagined a peace like the peace he found there, that night, in Mrs Gast's apartment. He wished the evening could go on forever: Mrs Gast weaving her spells in the low lamplight, the good food warm in his belly, Aerith sleeping against his chest, her breath soft and regular, his own eyelids drooping…

A cool hand on his forehead woke Tseng up. Mrs Gast was stroking the hair back from his brow. "Time to go to bed, little one," she said. "Come again tomorrow."

Over the weeks and months that followed, Ifalna Gast, with her cooking and her gentleness, tamed Piet Veld's fierce orphan. Looking back, the adult Tseng often wondered if this was what the Commander had whispered into her ear the day they first met. _What the boy needs is a mother_. Or perhaps it was simply this: _he needs something soft to love. _

Mrs Gast was very different from the Commander. She never raised her voice; she never grew impatient or struck Aerith. Yet in some ways, it seemed to Tseng, they were alike. She was small, and Veld was tall, but they had the same strong physical presence. She was comfortable with silences. When Tseng asked her a question, she gave it careful consideration before she answered. She did not lie or make false promises. And when she looked at Tseng with those reddish-brown eyes, those earth-coloured eyes of hers, he felt that she saw through to his core just as the Commander did – that she knew everything about him, and mostly approved of what she saw, though there was always room for improvement.

Tseng would willingly have lain down his life for either of them. He loved them unreservedly, without any expectation of return. He knew perfectly well that Mrs Gast was not his mother, just as Commander Veld was not really his father; indeed, he would never allow himself to forget this. If they were good to him, it was because goodness was their nature. They saw something in him worth their trouble.

But he did think that Aerith loved him, a little.

He held her hand when she learned to walk. He picked her up when she fell down. He taught her to throw and catch a ball. He gave her piggyback rides. He drew pictures of monsters for her to colour, and cartoons of stick men riding stick chocobos. Sometimes Mrs. Gast let him take Aerith out of the suite. They went to the cafeteria for ice cream, then rode up and down the elevators together, Aerith sitting on his hip to press all the buttons.

Mrs. Gast herself did not leave the apartment.

How and when did he learn that Aerith's father was dead? As a grown man, he couldn't recall. Did the Commander tell him? Or was it simply the only conclusion to be drawn from the fact of Mr. Gast's non-existence? Who Mr. Gast was, or had been, Tseng didn't know and didn't think to ask.

Three armed infantrymen were always on duty outside Mrs. Gast's door, but never the same ones for more than a month or two. Were they guarding her, or protecting her? Tseng never asked about this either; yet, looking back, it seemed to him he must have known, even when he was ten or eleven years old, that she was a prisoner - or if not a prisoner, then something similar: someone whose importance had cost her her freedom. Yet she seemed content. Happy, even.

*

When Tseng was thirteen years old, the Commander's wife and daughter died.

Tseng would never have known if Natalya hadn't told him. She took him aside and whispered the news. "How?" he asked. She said their house had caught fire. The Commander had lost an arm trying to save them.

(It was only years later, when he was a fully-fledged Turk, that Tseng learned the truth. Kalm had been burnt to the ground by Shinra, on Veld's orders. Veld had meant to order the bombing of an illegal arms cache fifty kilometers east of Kalm, but the coordinates had become garbled in transmission. Hundreds of innocent people had died as a result. Knowing Veld as well as he did, the adult Tseng understood that there was a sense in which his guilt had helped him to bear his grief, and his grief had enabled him to transcend the guilt: the death of his family was the punishment for his mistake.)

The Commander was gone for a month. When he came back, wearing a prosthetic arm, he looked ten years older. Grey streaked his hair. He sat at his desk with his shoulders hunched, grimly ploughing through the paperwork that had piled up in his absence, while the Turks came and went on their soft-soled shoes, asking short questions to which they received short answers. They understood what Tseng was also in time to learn, that work is the best cure for sorrow. To the thirteen year old boy, though, the silence felt absolute. He was afraid it might be like this forever. How could he break it? What could he say?

_I'm sorry your wife and daughter are dead._

But was he?

_Are you angry with me for being alive? Do you wish it was me who had died?_

For almost a year Tseng had kept out of trouble at school – or perhaps it would be truer to say that trouble had steered well clear of him. The other boys, having learnt to fear him, gave him a wide berth. But on the day after the Commander came back to Midgar, he exploded. What the trigger was, he never could say. A word in the wrong place? A squint of the eyes? Did he even need a reason? The pleasure was all that mattered: the joy of kicking his enemy's legs neatly out from under him, executing to perfection the maneuver he had learnt from Knox in the gym; the satisfaction of pinning his enemy to the floor by kneeling on the softest part of the upper arms and then grinding his knees until he could feel the hardness of bone inside flesh. Grabbing a handful of his enemy's hair, Tseng smashed the boy's head against the floor. Once he started, he couldn't stop; slam, slam, slam, though he could hear the bone cracking, could taste the flecks of blood that spattered his lips. The boy's head had become the Commander's grief, and Tseng was pummeling it into oblivion: screams were what was needed to break the silence.

It took four teachers to peel Tseng from his unconscious victim. "Holy shit," exclaimed one, "The gook's killed him!" which was going too far, even for the Junior Military Academy. Tseng was hauled to the Principal's office, and Veld was summoned.

When he arrived, the first thing the Commander did was order the Principal to leave the room. Once they were alone, he turned to Tseng, who was standing at attention in the center of the carpet, and simply looked at him, his expression unreadable, for a long time.

Then he said, "I thought you'd grown out of this kind of thing."

Tseng had expected to get the buckle end of Veld's belt. He could have borne that, because he deserved it. But this – to see the Commander looking so tired, to hear him sounding so flat, unable to summon the energy to punish a miscreant; unable, perhaps, to care – this hurt more than anything.

Veld went on, "Your teachers say it was an unprovoked attack."

Tseng hung his head. "I'm sorry, sir."

Veld lowered himself into the Principal's chair. For a few moments he merely sat there, elbows braced on knees, resting his forehead against his knuckles. Then he began to speak. "Listen, my boy. I'm not going to lie to you. I've hurt people. As you know. Sometimes I've hurt innocent people. I'm not proud of that, but I'm not ashamed of it either. I do what's necessary. It's my job. I don't do it for fun. What I want you to understand is that when you start to enjoy someone else's pain, then you've crossed the line. There's enough monsters in Midgar already. We need to remember we're men. Look, why don't you sit down?"

Veld gestured at a chair with his prosthesis. For a moment Tseng felt sick. He had been avoiding the sight of that arm. It was, to be sure, a splendid example of Shinra technology. Spliced to the raw ends of Veld's living nerves, the fingers moved almost like real fingers. There was a materia slot in the wrist. The silicon skin was life-coloured, thought its texture was rubbery, poreless, and cold. It looked real, but it wasn't real. It was second best. A fake arm could never be a real arm. It could never replace flesh and blood.

Seeing the look on Tseng's face, Veld lifted the prosthetic arm and stretched its hand out towards the boy. "Does this bother you? Get over it, my boy. I like my new arm. In some ways it's better than the old one. And it…." He hesitated. A spasm of pain contorted his features.

"It hurts," said Tseng.

The Commander nodded. "Yes. A lot. But it's all right. It'll get better. Don't be afraid of pain, Tseng. If we couldn't feel pain, how would we know we were alive? And this arm… it's heavier than my old one. Feels like a damn dead weight, sometimes. But it helps to remind me how much of me is still human. Now, go clean out your locker and we'll go home."

Tseng's victim did not die, though it was touch and go for a while. The payment of an undisclosed sum of money, combined with Veld's position in Shinra and the fear inspired by the Turks, persuaded the boys' parents to drop the lawsuit they had been contemplating, and so that particular trouble was averted. The Junior Military Academy expelled Tseng nevertheless, a consummation they had long desired. His departure brought the percentage of Wuteng in that elite school down to zero.

"Looks like you've completed your education," said the Commander. "So you might as well get to work."

A suit was made for him, a tie purchased in the company store. For the first time in his life Tseng liked what he saw in the mirror. He went to show himself off to Mrs Gast and Aerith. Aerith was charmed by the tie and immediately climbed into his lap to try to undo the knot. Mrs Gast looked long and hard into his face, until he felt uncomfortable and had to turn away.

"You're so young," she said. "Is this really what you want?"

"It's what I've always wanted," he replied.

The first living thing he killed was a Chuse Tank. Down in the sewers beneath Sector 8, he took it out with a single clean shot through the eye, and he was so proud he dragged it all the way back to the office to show to the others, who clapped him on the back and suggested having it stuffed.

Aerith wanted to see it, too. He asked Mrs Gast if he could show it to her. She replied, "I'm sorry, Tseng, but no."

Her coolness, her lack of enthusiasm, hurt him deeply. Clearly she was in some obscure way disappointed in him, but why? She had always known he was destined to be a Turk. It was the one of the first things the Commander had told her. Among the ignorant masses the Turks had a bad reputation; he knew that. He had assumed Mrs Gast was not ignorant, that she realized the Turks were essentially practical people who did difficult, necessary things, getting their hands dirty so that others would not need to. No Turk expected gratitude. Yet he had truly believed Mrs Gast would understand and be glad for him, knowing him as she did and having been his friend for so long.

But then, how well could one person ever know another, really?

Now that Tseng was in the office during working hours, he was coming to realize there were many things he did not know about Mrs Gast. For example, he had never known that the Commander also paid regular visits to her apartment, which, now that the building had been completed, had been moved to the 63rd floor. One day during his lunch break Tseng went up to give Aerith a purple lollipop he'd bought while patrolling Loveless Avenue, only to find the Commander ensconced on the sofa, balancing a delicate china cup on his blue serge knee. "Come in," Veld and Mrs Gast said together, apparently pleased to see him. For one awful moment he wondered if he had surprised them in some kind of old folks' romantic assignation (he was at the age when such images easily sprang to mind) - but there was Mrs Gast sitting up at the table, and the Commander on the sofa, and Aerith playing on the floor between them, and the whole atmosphere was one of easy friendliness. Tseng took a cup of tea and sat down on the carpet beside Aerith, helping her to build a castle out of bricks while the adults resumed their conversation.

They were discussing the possibility of war with Wutai. That backward kingdom, all that remained of the world outside Shinra's empire, was rich in mako, but refused to accept the necessity of reactors on its sovereign soil.

"And what about you, Tseng?" asked Mrs Gast. "How would you feel if there was a war against Wutai?"

He threw up his head and glared at her fiercely. "I'm Shinra."

Again the sad smile, the shadow of disappointment in her eyes. "I know that," she said.

She turned back to Veld. "More war. Always war. Brother against brother."

"If this war happens," said the Commander, "We'll win, and that'll be it. There will be no more wars after."

"I think you really believe that. But this is too harsh a world you've made, Piet – you, and Shinra, and Heidegger, and the others."

The Commander said, "It was worse before."

_There's so much I don't know_, thought Tseng.

That evening, when they were eating supper together in the staff canteen, Tseng said to Veld, "Tell me about before, sir."

"Before what?"

"Before Shinra."

So Veld told him, and it was pretty much what he had learned in school. Centuries of warfare – the Great Continental War, the Gi Invasions, the Mideelian War of the Funeral Urn, the Grasslands Nomads' War, the Fifteen Years' War, the Wars of the Three Queens… The history of their world had been one long struggle for power and control of resources, which had only ended when a small arms manufacturer, grown rich on the wars of others, had discovered a way of providing seemingly inexhaustible energy for all. You could call it empire building, or you could call it imposing peace. Either way, the weary world had been mostly glad to see Shinra take control. As the Commander had said to Mrs Gast, it had been worse before.

Then the Director pushed aside their plates, and taking hold of Tseng's wrists, leaned forward. Looking around to make sure there was nobody within earshot, he said in a low, forceful voice, "Listen. You're old enough now to know. What I'm about to tell you are company secrets. You don't talk about them with anybody outside the Turks. You understand?"

Heart beating fast, Tseng nodded.

Then the Director told him the things they didn't teach in school.

Mako energy was a finite resource. One day it would run out.

Mako extraction killed the soil around the reactors. And the dead zones were spreading.

Reactor activity bred monsters. Midgar had so many monsters because it had so many reactors.

Shinra scientists did not know the answers to these problems. But there was somebody who might.

Humans brings were not the only intelligent life form on the planet. Once there had been another race, an ancient race possessed of a wealth of knowledge about the planet. They were a long-lived people, but not vigorous, and several thousand years ago an unknown calamity had befallen them, possibly a disease of some sort, which had reduced their numbers below what a species needed to survive. Over the centuries they had continued to die out. Mrs Gast was the last one left. To safeguard her, Shinra had taken her into protective custody.

"You see, Tseng, Mrs Gast – Ifalna – knows something that could be of vital importance for our future. Her people called it the Promised Land. It's a source of unlimited mako that won't drain the planet. If she would tell us where it is, all the world's problems could be solved."

Tseng's mind was reeling. He couldn't take everything in. One point stood out for him. "Do you mean, sir, that Aerith's mother…. That she's not - a human being?"

"That's a good question. I'm no scientist, but obviously she has to be human enough to have had a child with Gast. I suppose the answer is that she's partly human. Or maybe she's a different kind of human. She's certainly much older than she looks. She knows so much about this planet. If only we could get her to talk."

"But Aerith?" said Tseng. "What about Aerith?"

"If Ifalna were to confide what she knows to anyone, it would be her daughter. And her husband. I've always regretted his death."

"_You_ killed him?" exclaimed Tseng.

"No. Professor Hojo killed him. But I led Hojo to them. Faremis Gast used to run the Science Department. Hojo was one of his subordinates. Gast was working with Ifalna, trying to get her to share her knowledge. Then they fell in love. The thing is, Tseng, we're not unreasonable. They could have lived here together and continued to work together and everybody would have been happy. But they were seduced by the illusion of freedom. They ran away. My orders were to bring them back. It took me two years to track them down. Eventually I found them at Icicle Inn. They'd had to stop running. Aerith had just been born."

"I offered them the chance to return together. We needed them both. But they refused. I hadn't realized I was being followed, so I left them to think it over. After I left, Hojo showed up with some of Heidgger's men and ordered them to shoot Faremis. He said the Gasts were trying to escape. He was lying, of course. He had his own reasons for not wanting to see his old boss come back. But I want us to be absolutely clear about this, Tseng. I liked Faremis, but if I'd had to kill him in order to secure Ifalna, I would have done it. She's too valuable to lose."

"But – " Tseng stammered, "I don't understand. You seem – like friends – "

"She neither blames me nor forgives me," the Director replied. "That probably makes no sense to you. But you can see why she doesn't trust me. Or Shinra. She never has. And I don't blame her either. Personal feelings don't come into it. She has information that we need. We have to convince her to share it with us, for her own sake as much as anyone else's. And by we I mean you and me. The President is growing impatient. There is a limit to how long he will wait before he decides to turn them both over to Hojo, who has his own ways of getting what he wants out of people. You know what I mean."

Tseng did know: he had heard the stories. He had seen the victims of the failed experiments, carried out under white sheets to be disposed of in the incinerators. It would be better to die than to fall into Hojo's hands.

"No," he said, "Not Aerith."

"You're very fond of that little girl, aren't you? And she adores you. You've done well there, Tseng. I think Ifalna trusts you. I know she likes you. Build on that. Don't tackle her head on, don't ask her to tell. That'll shut her down more surely than anything, because she'll know it comes from me. Go on being what you've always been to them. Eventually, god willing, she'll see sense."

But Tseng could not bring himself to do it. He was afraid to go and see them now. How could he look Mrs Gast in the eyes and pretend to be innocent of the things the Commander had told him? What did it mean, anyway, to be a 'different kind of human'? Was Aerith different too? Half different, since she was half human? How could you tell? In what ways were they different? What things did they know? What powers did they have? Now that he knew the truth, what would he see when he looked at them? What small details, gone unnoticed up till now, would give their alien nature away? Those pots full of flowers, for one thing – where else did flowers grow in Midgar? How did she do that? And what if she caught him watching her? What if she could sense his suspicions? What if she could read his mind? He had always had the feeling with her that she knew more about him than he had willingly let on.

But Aerith… she was just an innocent child. That's all she was. A little girl.

It was wrong. It was unfair. He couldn't do it.

A fortnight passed. His longing for Aerith tugged at his heartstrings. But his fear, and his anger at having been deceived, were stronger.

Then a morning came when Veld strode into the office, took hold of him by the ear, and dragged him into the corridor. "What the hell do you think you're playing at?" he growled. "Ifalna's been asking me if you're sick. She says the girl's been crying every day because you don't visit. Do you want to undo all our hard work? Get up there, now, and apologise."

Aerith opened the door. "Tseng!" she cried joyfully, throwing her arms around his waist. "Mummy! It's Tseng! He's better!"

Mrs Gast came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on her apron. "It's good to see you," she smiled. "We were worried."

He could not meet her eyes.

She laid a hand on his head. This was something she often did in passing. It always felt to Tseng a bit like a blessing, though he would have been far too embarrassed to say so. This time, though, her touch bore an unaccustomed weight. His head tilted under its pressure.

"Tseng," she said, "Look at me."

He was fourteen years old, and as tall as she was. When he meet her gaze, his eyes were on a level with hers. She looked younger than the Commander; one might have guessed she was the same age as Natalya. _A long-lived race. _How old was she, really? The Commander had never said.

She saw all this in his eyes, just as he had known she would. "Piet told you, didn't he?"

After a moment, Tseng nodded.

"And that's why you stayed away?"

He blurted out, "Why did you lie to me?"

"Lie to you?" She sounded astonished. "How did I lie to you, Tseng?"

It was hard to find the words for what he felt. But he knew he had been deceived. He had been led to believe one thing, when all the time the truth was something else.

"You never told me. You let me think you were just ordinary… Normal -"

"Normal?" She stepped away from him as if she had been stung. "Normal?" Her coppery eyes blazed. "You, a Turk – you think you know what is normal? Is it normal to bring children up in an office building? Never seeing sunlight? Is it normal to put a gun in the hands of a thirteen year old? Is that normal in your world, Tseng? To teach a child to kill?"

Around his wrist he felt the pressure of Aerith's fingers. She, too, had never seen her mother angry before. He lifted the frightened girl into his arms. "It's all right," he murmured into her ear. To Mrs Gast he said, "I'm here to protect you. Why don't you understand?"

Ifalna pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. The quick blaze of anger had already faded. Her eyes were soft and brown and sad again. "Oh, Tseng. I understand – "

"I do what's necessary. But I would never hurt Aerith. I would never hurt either of you."

"I know," she said gently. "Oh, Tseng, I do know that. My dear child, let's not fight with each other. Aerith and I don't have so many friends that we can afford to drive one away. I understand why you feel I deceived you. But if I didn't mention it, it was because I never felt it mattered. The differences between people are not important. I am still the same woman I've always been. Aerith is still Aerith. And we have missed you. "

"I missed you so much," said Aerith, hugging his neck and kissing his check. "Don't be mad at us."

_She's imitating her mother_, he realized. _She doesn't really understand any of what just passed. It's not her fault; she's only a little girl._

From that day forward things were never quite easy again between Veld's youngest Turk and the last remaining Cetra. Both of them felt the estrangement, yet neither knew how to undo it. Tseng was not someone who gave his trust easily. Still, he visited their apartment almost as often as he had done before, because it was his job.

Because of Aerith.

Months passed.

The year turned, and Aerith was seven. She could read and write, cook simple dishes, and sew a straight seam; she could form her own opinions, and she wasn't shy about expressing them. She wanted Tseng to teach her how to shoot a gun. She wanted a kitten. Chocobo racing was cruel: she'd seen it on the TV. One of the birds fell and broke its leg and had to be put down. That wasn't right. Had it asked to run in races? And why couldn't she go to school? Other kids went to school. She had seen them on TV. And why couldn't they go for one of those holidays she'd seen advertised, in Costa del Sol? She wanted to see the ocean. If she could be any animal in the world, she would be a dolphin. Dolphins were the most intelligent mammals. Eating meat was cruel: it was mean to kill a living thing just to eat it. She was going to be vegetarian. When she grew up, she was going to be a doctor. Or maybe a materia hunter. Or maybe a Turk.

Rufus Shinra first appeared in their lives around this time. He simply materialized at Mrs Gast's door one day, a small, blond, pretty child in a sailor suit, pulled to that spot by whatever mysterious force it is that draws children together. A flurry of phone calls ensued, and in short order a starched nanny arrived to escort him back to the penthouse. He went kicking and struggling, and the next day he returned. This time, the powers that be allowed him to stay. It was the shape of things to come. Even at five years old, when Rufus wanted something, Rufus got it.

"He is an annoying baby," said Aerith. She resented having to share Tseng's attention. But Rufus wiled himself into her good graces: he submitted to being her doll, allowing her to dress him up in her old clothes and to brush his long, curly hair; he played 'going shopping' and 'tea party' as if he enjoyed it. He was the tonberry felled by her Turk, the naughty class dunce to her ruler-wielding schoolmarm. His reward for putting up with all this girl play was to be allowed to look at, and sometimes even touch, Tseng's gun.

"Must you bring it here?" Mrs Gast asked him.

"I forget I'm wearing it," he told her truthfully in his new, deep voice. He was fifteen by Veld's reckoning, and a head taller than she. He'd been wearing that gun under his suit for almost three years now. Without it he felt vulnerable. Naked.

He'd long ago stopped keeping count of the monsters he'd killed.

The long-anticipated war with Wutai had finally broken out. Commander Veld was visiting Mrs Gast more often these days – two, sometimes three times a week. When he arrived, Mrs Gast asked Tseng to take the children out. Veld protested, "I have nothing to say to you that he can't hear," but she was firm. "It's my daughter I'm thinking of."

There was something ominous about the frequency of these visits. The shadow Hojo cast over Ifalna and her child was growing longer. Tseng sensed they were living on borrowed time.

Finally the day came when the Commander walked into Ifalna's apartment without knocking. "Tseng," he said, "Take Rufus back to the penthouse. Leave Aerith here." His tone was clipped and urgent. Ifalna, too, sensed that something was wrong. Instantly she stood up, forgetting the plate of cookies balanced on her knee. They fell to the floor: the plate shattered, and the cookies rolled away under the sofa. Tseng got down on his hands and knees to pick up the jagged shards of plate before the children could cut themselves.

"Leave that," Veld snapped. "Just go."

Rufus went willingly enough, pleased to have Tseng to himself for the duration of the elevator ride. Tseng handed him over to his nanny and hurried back down. As soon as the elevator doors opened on the Gasts' floor he could hear raised voices and the sound of Aerith crying. Ifalna's door was ajar: the three infantrymen stood on guard outside, their faces hidden by their helmets.

Ifalna was shouting, "You're the one who refuses to listen, Piet. How many times do I have to say it?"

Tseng slipped through the door and shut it. Aerith ran to him. "Stop them," she begged. "Stop them, stop them."

"You're throwing dust in our eyes," Veld shouted back. "Seven years I've protected you and all you can give me is this Lifestream bullshit. Dead is dead. Gast is dead. My wife is dead. Felicia is dead. You can't talk to them and you can't bring them back. We will never see them again. Accept it. They're _gone_."

Ifalna gasped. "How can you believe that? It's too cruel – "

"Cruel? Cruel? I'll tell you what's cruel. To fob me off with fairy tales and try to buy time by talking me into believing that my daughter's essence, her _soul – _" he spat out the word – "Still exists in some form, somewhere – that's what's cruel. That is an evil thing to do."

"That's not what I said. You are deliberately twisting – "

"Why don't you prove it to me, then? Go on. Talk to her. Tell me something only she and I would know. Do that, and I'll believe you."

"I can't do that."

"No?" The Commander snorted sarcastically. "My, there's a surprise. You know, Ifalna, I used to think you were just pig-headed, but now I think you actually take pleasure inthe pain you inflict on me."

"Oh!" cried Ifalna, "You hypocrite – "

He hit her, slapping her open-handed across the mouth. She fell back against the wall, hands raised to ward him off.

Aerith screamed.

"Shut up," said Veld.

For a few moments he continued to stand there, fists clenched, breathing heavily, glaring at Mrs Gast. Tseng recognized the look in his eyes. He was itching to beat her into submission. Ifalna seemed to know what that look meant, too. She returned his stare defiantly, daring him to try.

The Commander was the first to drop his gaze. "I can't help you any more," he said, sounding suddenly exhausted. "If you won't meet me halfway, then there's nothing more I can do. Just remember, Ifalna, this was your choice."

He turned to go.

"Piet," said Ifalna. "Wait."

He stopped, though he did not turn round.

She said, "You can't find what you seek because you don't believe in what you're looking for. But it will find you, where you least expect it."

"Stuff your riddles," Veld snarled. He went out, slamming the door behind him.

Aerith ran to her mother and clung to her, shaking with fear. Ifalna kissed her daughter over and over. Then she looked up at Tseng. Her lip was bleeding. A bruise had formed on her cheek. The Commander must have hit her earlier, when Tseng was out of the room. Why did she have to be so obstinate?

"How can you do this to Aerith?" he cried. "Why can't you just tell him?"

"You have to help us," said Ifalna, pulling herself upright. "We have to get out of here, now."

"I can't help you to escape. You can't ask me to do that."

"The President's giving us to Hojo. He signed the order today. Is that what you want for Aerith, Tseng? To be a sample in his labs? An experiment?"

"Of course not!"

"I'll kill her myself before I let that beast have her." Ifalna looked round wildly. Her gaze found a knife lying on the table. Tseng saw it at the same time and moved to grab it, but desperation lent Ifalna speed. In one swift motion she snatched up the knife and held it against her daughter's throat.

He drew his gun and leveled it at her face.

Ifalna laughed. "Are you going to shoot me, Turk? Will that save her, if you kill me?"

Aerith stood motionless, the pressure of the knife's blade creasing the skin under her chin. "Please," she said in a small voice, "Please, please, Tseng, don't hurt mummy. Please."

Tseng himself was on the brink of panic. What could he do? What should he do?

_Don't feel, think._

If he shot Ifalna, Hojo would take Aerith. If he did not let her go, Ifalna would kill Aerith. There was no other choice. He was out of options.

Lowering the gun, he said, "What do you want me to do?"

"Go to your materia room. Get me something – Sleep, or Stop, either will do. I don't want to hurt anyone. All I want is to keep Aerith safe. Be as fast as you can. We don't have much time."

All the way to the materia room his mind was working furiously, trying to find some other solution. He desperately hoped he would run into somebody – Natalya or Knox, or best of all, the Commander – who would stop him, ask him what he thought he was doing, and take the matter out of his hands. But the office was empty. He selected four materia and rode the elevator back up to the apartment, dreading, hoping, that he would find them dead or gone. But the three infantrymen were still on guard, and when he went inside Ifalna was still crouched against the wall, one arm round Aerith's neck, the other hand clutching the knife.

"Now what?" he asked.

"Put them on the table. Keep one. Now – go out, but leave the door open so I can see what you're doing. Go to the elevator and press the call button. Then cast the materia on my guards. That will give us time to get away. You should leave before they wake up. And please - don't follow us."

He did as she asked. The three guards slumped to the ground, dazed and helpless. Ifalna lowered the knife. Aerith jumped into her mother's arms, wrapping her legs tightly around Ifalna's waist. Ifalna scooped the materia from the table into her pocket. The elevator pinged. Clutching her child to her heart, Ifalna poised to run. The elevator doors slid open.

Another infantryman stepped out.

A moment was enough for him to take in the scene: his unconscious comrades, the prisoner's open door, the prisoner herself caught red-handed in the act of escaping with her child, and the boy Turk with a gun in his hand –

Tseng shot him.

At point-blank range the bullet pierced the bridge of his nose and blasted a hole in the back of his skull, spraying brain and bone and blood across the company logo on the wall behind.

Ifalna thrust her fist into her mouth to keep from crying out. Aerith was too shocked to make a sound.

Tseng had never killed a man before. Only monsters.

In the aftermath of the gun's report, a silence fell that seemed to last for hours.

Then Tseng woke up to the realization that the elevator doors were closing. He wedged them open with one foot. "Quick," he said to Ifalna.

She and Aerith had to step over the infantryman's body to reach the elevator. His foot holding the door open, Tseng leaned inside, flipped open a panel, and entered a code on the numbered keypad. "It's an override," he explained. "Now it won't stop till you reach the mezzanine. Mingle with the crowds. It's safest. You'll need money – "

He gave her all the gil he had. He wanted to give her the gun too, but she wouldn't take it.

"But thank you," she said, and kissed him. Tears were running down her cheeks. Aerith wouldn't look at him. Her face was pressed against her mother's shoulder.

He moved his foot. The doors closed.

They were gone.

Tseng walked down the stairs to the Turks' floor. The office was still empty. He sat in the lounge and watched the small hand of the clock judder forward, slow second by second, until ten minutes had passed. Then he opened his phone and called the Commander.

*

For more than three hours he waited as he had been told to, until eventually Veld returned to the office and told him that Mrs Gast was dead, shot by one of Heidegger's trigger-happy grunts. Though mortally wounded, she'd managed to escape them by throwing the materia. Her dead body had been found at the Sector 7 train station.

_My fault_, thought Tseng, _my fault, my fault._

He would have cried if he could, but his eyes were so dry they burned.

"Aerith," he said. "Where is she?"

"No sign of her. We'll keep looking, of course, but a little girl like that, alone in the slums…. It's unlikely she'll survive for very long. And then there's Sergeant Mehta, dead for doing his job. So. Are you proud of your day's work, Tseng?"

_What do you think?_ Tseng wanted to shout back. _I tried to save them and now Mrs Gast is dead and Aerith is lost because of me. I didn't mean to kill the sergeant. He took me surprise; it just happened. I didn't know what else to do. Why did you go away and leave me?_

"She was bluffing," said the Commander. "No mother would ever harm her child. She lied. She used you. Do you see that now? It was her plan all along, I think. "

_No_, thought Tseng, _that's not true. She was my friend. _

But how he could be sure of anything any more?

"After I left you," the Commander went on, "I went to talk to the President again, to try to get him to overturn the order. To give me a little more time. I was managing to make some headway – and then, you called. He wants your skin, my boy. And I've a mind to let him have it."

By the time the Commander was finished with him, Tseng's back was in shreds and two of his bones were broken and all he could think about was the pain, which was, he realized afterwards, Veld's kindness. It was less a punishment than an absolution: the pain was like a fire that swept through his soul, burning up and cleaning away the dead wood of self-recrimination, and, when it had passed, leaving him light-headed and detached on the other side of the scorched earth.

If souls even existed. The Commander didn't think so. But what, then, was Tseng to call this thing inside him that had been beaten in the forge and come out harder, colder, resilient, like steel?

Life went on. One year succeeded another, years of warfare, profit, and incremental victories. Tseng rose through the ranks, moved out of the Shinra building, found his own apartment, took lovers of both sexes, sometimes for work and occasionally for pleasure. Old Turks died or were transferred to branch offices. New Turks replaced them: Mozo, Charlie, Rosalind; Rude, Cissnei, Reno.

Five years went by; and then, one day, Tseng heard a rumour of flowers growing in the old church in the Sector 5 slums. He knew at once who was responsible; he'd never really been able to believe she was dead. So he took the train down to the market and picked his way along the rubble in the streets until he came to the door of the church, opened it, and went in. She was up at the far end, standing beside a bed of yellow and white flowers that appeared to be giving off some kind of light – though that, surely, must be his eyes playing tricks in the gloom.

How old was she now? Twelve? Dressed in boy's shorts and a grey sleeveless pullover, she was taller and skinnier, and her hair was longer, but otherwise she was unchanged. She, too, recognised him straight away. But this time there was no joyous shout of greeting, no jumping into his arms. It was not fear in her eyes, exactly, or hatred, but it was something close. She took a step backwards.

He stayed where he was and said, "Don't be afraid."

"I'm not going back. You can't make me." Her declaration echoed boldly round the nave.

"I haven't come to take you back. I wanted to be sure it was you. Are you all right?"

She took another step. If he moved, if he startled her in anyway, she would run.

"Go away!" she shouted. "Leave me alone!"

"Is this where you live? Are you on your own? Is anyone looking after you?"

"I'm not going to tell you, Turk!"

"All right. That's fine. You don't have to. Listen - Do you need money? Look, here's money." Very slowly, like a man disarming himself, he took a wad of gil from his inside pocket and laid it down on the nearest pew.

"I don't want your money!"

"That's OK. Maybe you know somebody who needs it. Aerith – " After so many years, it was sweet to taste her name on his tongue once more. He said it again, "Aerith, I haven't come to hurt you or to take you back. My job is to keep you safe. Do you understand that?"

"Why did you have to come here? Why couldn't you stay away?"

"I have to know that you're all right. Just tell me that, Aerith. Tell me you're all right. Please."

Was it his imagination, or did her expression soften just a little?

"I'm fine. Now stop asking questions and go away."

She was right. He mustn't rush her.

"Whatever you want," he said. "Look, I'm going now. But I will come back, just to check on you. You don't have to worry. You'll be safe. I promise you."

She never took her eyes off him the whole time he was backing out of the church. And yet he couldn't help feeling that some part of her, some little part, had been glad to see him. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

Back at the office he went straight to the Commander.

Veld was rarely surprised by anything, but on this occasion it took him a few moments to assimilate what his lieutenant was trying to tell him. When he finally, fully understood that Ifalna's daughter was alive and well and growing flowers in the slums beneath his feet, he laughed out loud, punched the air, and enfolded Tseng in a bear hug.

Rejoicing done, they got down to business. Veld thought, and Tseng agreed with him, that this time around they should handle the primary objective differently. Since certain executives on the board advocated methods that were bound to be counter-productive, it was in the company's best interests to keep Aerith's existence a secret known only to the Turks. They would watch her, protect her, and ensure her survival. Tseng would continue to cultivate her friendship and try to win back her trust. There was no guarantee that she would ever tell them what she knew - if, indeed, she knew anything at all about the mystery her mother had died to protect. But it was the only way. In this, as in so many things, Tseng found that he and the Commander were of one mind.

What he didn't share with Veld was the decision he had made, on the way back from the church, that if he were ever ordered to bring Aerith in, he would shoot her. Two bullets: one bullet in the base of her skull, where it wouldn't hurt and she would never know what hit her. A second bullet for himself. Strange that it should be such a comforting thought, to know that death was the worst thing that could happen…

"Complicated?"

Zack's voice brought Tseng back to the present moment: church, slums, SOLDIER, helicopter hovering above, the necessity of travelling to Modeoheim.

"Really?" Zack added.

Was it Tseng's imagination, or did Zack sound a little – suspicious?

_Zack Fair, _thought Tseng, _what a simple soul you are._

He asked, "Has she said anything to you?"

"Not a thing," Zack admitted.

Tseng shrugged. "Then I won't either."

The noise generated by the helicopter's descent rendered further conversation impossible.


	16. There Are Things We Don't Talk About

**CHAPTER 16: THERE ARE THINGS WE DON'T TALK ABOUT  
_In which Veld debriefs Tseng on the mission to Modeoheim, and Mink files her surveillance report on Aerith_**

**

* * *

**

_Form S-DAR/REP:6A_

**_SHINRA ELECTRIC COMPANY_**

**_Department of Administrative Research_**

**_Mission Report_**

_Mission to: Modeoheim_

_Mission Objective: Liquidation of SOLDIER 1st Class Angeal Hewley_

_Agents: Tseng_

_Accompanied by: SOLDIER 1st Class Zack Fair_

_2x infantrymen: Strife, Pearlman_

_Mission Date: October 31st 2001_

_Report filed by: Tseng, ID S-DAR.M/54.S_

_Mission status: Accomplished_

_Journeyed to Modeoheim via helicopter. Observed from air significant increase in monster activity. Helicopter attacked and brought down by griffin. No casualties. Weather -11 with heavy snow cover. Proceeded from crash site to Modeoheim on foot. Halted on mountainside to observe disused mako factory; Fair and Strife sent to investigate. Factory infested with Genesis copies. Fair and Strife eliminated these and proceeded to basement, where they found Genesis Rhapsodos in an advanced state of degradation, apparently attempting to kill Professor Hollander. Fair fought Genesis and reports that he fell into the mine shaft and is likely dead (for details, see Fair's report filed with SOLDIER)._

_Hollander escaped from factory. Strife, Pearlman and I pursued him. Hollander ran into derelict bathhouse. I left Pearlman to guard entrance and went inside with Strife. No sign of Hollander. Killed several cuahl-type monsters. Proceeded up interior stairs, and found Target._

_Target recognised me and approached. He asked if I had come to kill him. Answered Target in the affirmative. Had brief conversation. Was taken by surprise by Hollander who came out from upstairs room firing a gun. Private Strife wounded. I returned fire. Target cast materia that rendered Strife and myself unconscious._

_Awoke to see Zack Fair battling large monster of unidentifiable type, Hollander attempting to escape. Private Strife and I apprehended Hollander. Fair killed monster._

_Returned to Midgar…_

Veld glanced up from the printout to put a question to Tseng, who was sitting on the other side of the desk. "The monster was Angeal?"

"In some way that I don't understand, yes, sir. When Zack killed it, it vaporized, and Angeal was left behind. He died a few moments later."

"So it was much more than just the wing?"

Tseng hesitated. The Commander seemed to be missing the point, probably because Tseng had failed to explain himself clearly. There were some things it was wiser not to commit to paper, when you worked in Shinra.

He said, "Angeal wanted to die. He was waiting for Zack. He wanted Zack to do it. No one else."

Veld laid down the paper and looked hard into his lieutenant's face. "How do you know this?"

"He told me."

Veld frowned. "You allowed yourself to be distracted -"

"Sir, Hollander talked to Zack. About Project G. And Jenova."

The furrow between Veld's thick brows deepened ominously. "What exactly did he say?"

"He told him about Angeal's mother Gillian and how her cells were mapped onto Genesis."

"But what did he say about Jenova? Did he tell Zack what Jenova _is?_"

"I can't remember – "

_You don't want to remember, _his mind protested_. You want to forget what you saw - _

Though he had told himself beforehand that he would not bring his emotions into this, Tseng's hands now betrayed him. They began to shake. He tried willing them to stop. They only trembled more violently. Quickly he trapped them between his knees, not wanting the Commander to see. But it was no good. His teeth were chattering now. He could feel himself shivering all over.

"What's wrong?" asked the Commander, pushing his chair back and standing up. "Tseng? Are you ill?"

"I saw it," said Tseng. "I saw all of it."

He had come back to consciousness on the upstairs landing of the bathhouse. To his right, Private Strife was slumped against the wall, groaning. Overhead Tseng could hear heavy footsteps and voices. With his legs numb from the after-effects of Hollander's materia attack, he had crawled through the hole in the wall, up the frozen heating pipes, and across the top floor, until he reached the doorway to the bathhouse loft, getting there in time to hear Hollander tell Zack about the experiments which had made Angeal and Genesis.

Above their heads the roof was broken; a sunset glow filled the room. Zack's face was a mingling of horror and disbelief. Angeal's held nothing but despair. Tseng tried to draw his gun, to shut Hollander up, but his fingers fumbled uselessly and he dropped the weapon. It made a loud noise as it hit a metal pipe. Not one of the three men heard it.

Angeal pushed Hollander hard, knocking him into a corner of the room, where he lay winded. Angeal then turned to Zack.

-_Remember when I told you that our enemy is everything that creates suffering?_

_ - Yes, but that's not you, _Zack cried.

- _Isn't it? I torment myself. Look. I'll show you._

And then the indescribable thing, the living nightmare.

Tseng had thought he'd seen it all: every monstrosity, every extreme of evil, this planet had to offer. But the creature that assembled itself in that loft room in Modeoheim was something nature had never planned or intended. It was man-made.

He knew what happened in the labs. He'd taken subjects in. He'd disposed of the failures and rejects. He didn't ask questions; he neither judged nor apologized. That was not his job.

But when it happened to a man he knew well, a man he admired and respected; when Angeal became a monster in front of his eyes, then there was no looking the other way. He had to see the truth for what it was and call it by its name, even if that name could never be uttered aloud.

Abomination.

_Stop it,_ _Angeal_, Zack had cried out, _you don't know what you're doing! _

Even then, and right to the bitter end, Zack had thought he could save the man he worshipped. He had believed he was fighting for Angeal's life.

_It would have been better if Angeal had let me shoot him_, thought Tseng. _How cruel, how monstrous, to make Zack do it. _

But Turks did not speak of these things.

Veld pressed a shinrafoam cup of coffee into Tseng's trembling fingers. "Drink it," he ordered. He'd loaded it with sugar, bitter-sweet. The heat and the sugar steadied Tseng's nerves. Between long sips he breathed deeply, inhaling the steamy aroma, forcing his senses to focus on the familiar details of Veld's office: the smoothness of the chair's leather upholstery; the grain of the wood in the Commander's desk; the plastic pot plants in the corner that neither grew nor flowered. Bit by bit the nightmare receded, and Tseng had himself back under control.

The Commander laid a hand, warm and heavy, on his lieutenant's shoulder, and let it rest there for a moment or two. Then he moved back to the other side of the table, took his seat, and picked up a pen. Though there were many things of which they might never speak, one aspect of this affair was clearly Turk business, and they needed to deal with it now.

"If he knows about Project G, then Zack Fair has become a potential security risk," said Veld.

Tseng raised his head. The implications of what Veld had just said were not slow to sink in. Zack's life was hanging in the balance.

"He won't talk," said Tseng.

"How can you be sure?"

"He'll want to protect Angeal's memory. If any of what happened at Modeoheim became public knowledge, it would dishonour Angeal."

"Of course, honour," mused Veld. "So Angeal infected Zack with his old-fashioned notions, did he? Probably no bad thing, from our point of view. Angeal knew how to make good SOLDIERs. Lazard won't find it easy to replace him."

"Lazard can't afford to lose any more First Classes," Tseng pointed out. "Morale in SOLDIER's rock bottom as it is. If Zack were to go missing in action, I think it would finish Lazard."

"But would that be a bad thing? You know I always thought it was a mistake to appoint him to SOLDIER. You don't put a loaded gun in the hands of a man with a grudge… especially when he's never handled a gun before in his life. Lazard's out of his depth, and without Angeal to hold them together, SOLDIER could easily become a liability for us."

"But don't you think, sir, that if Lazard were to go, SOLDIER would probably be transferred to Heidegger's command? It started off as part of the regular armed forces, didn't it? How would that benefit us? If Lazard can't afford to lose any more Firsts, we can't afford to lose any of our allies in the boardroom, and right now he and Reeve are the only ones we've got."

Veld smiled. "There's always Rufus."

Tseng was not amused. Seeing him frown, Veld gave his throaty chuckle. "Oh, cut the boy some slack. He only wants to impress you. And he's a clever little bugger when he wants to be. If he weren't who he is I might think seriously about recruiting him."

"Could we finish with Zack Fair, sir, please?"

The Commander sat back in his chair, cracking the knuckles of his real hand with his prosthetic fingers. "All right. You can have Zack, Tseng. For now. I trust your judgment, even though I know you're an old sentimentalist. But watch him."

"We already do, sir."

"Then watch him closer."

*

_Surveillance Duty, 5th November 2001_

At midday, high in the rafters of the Church, Knox hands over to Mink. She asks him, "Any sign of Zack Fair?" Knox shakes his head.

They both know what happened in Modeoheim. All the Turks have been briefed. They also know that the SOLDIER hasn't been to see his girlfriend since he returned from that mission, almost a week ago now.

Mink settles her back against the wall and puts her boots up on one of the barrels. Far below, the young girl in her striped summer dress is kneeling by her flowers. She tends to them as if they were children, stroking their petals and murmuring endearments. The towering stone walls and the vaulted ceiling act like an echo chamber, magnifying every sound she makes up. From up here, Mink can even hear Aerith breathing.

Nothing more exciting than that will happen; nothing ever happens, but Mink doesn't mind. She likes to be alone with her thoughts.

Four hours pass. Mink may have dozed off. The door to the church swings open loudly. Mink squints. There's not much light around the door, but she can make out a dark-haired figure in black. She sits up, wondering if it's the boss.

The figure walks forward, passes through one of the rainbows of light falling through the stained-glass windows, and she sees it is Zack Fair. The sword wound on his left jaw is raw, ugly.

Aerith jumps up and runs to greet him. But he's changed since the last time Mink saw him. The easy warmth, the boyish grin, are gone. He holds himself stiffly; tries to smile, but fails. Aerith falters. Her arms, raised in welcome, drop to her sides.

He tells her to go back to the flowers; he just wants to sit down quietly and watch her for a while. OK, she says, puzzled, but willing to go along with whatever he asks. He takes a seat in one of the pews. Aerith bends down with her back to him, running her fingers coaxingly along the flowers' leaves. Zack stares at her, unblinking. Does he see her? What is he seeing? His face is blank with grief.

Mink knows that look, so well.

After a while he gets restless and asks Aerith if she wants to go find something to eat. She is happy to agree. They head off towards the Sector 5 market; Mink slips along discretely behind. Aerith puts her hand in his. He grasps it so tightly the girl winces. They wander rather aimlessly from stall to stall. Mink guesses neither of them is really hungry. It's just something to do. Zack buys two apples from the fruit stall – dry, wrinkled, dusty things, but as good as you'll get down in the slums. Aerith bites into hers. Zack's fingers close round his. He says to Aerith, I_n Banora, the apples are blue…_

_ Where's Banora?_ asks Aerith.

_In Mideel. It was. It's not there any more._

_ Why, what happened to it?_

_ It doesn't matter_, says Zack.

They walk on, and after a while the apple falls from his hand, forgotten.

Aerith knows something's wrong, thought she doesn't know what. She can tell he's not really with her. Mink sees the determination come into her face: the girl's smooth jaw has set firm. Aerith's decided to fix it. She'll find some way to get through to him, some way to make him look at her and smile.

She says, _Let's go back to the Church._

They're out of Mink's sight while she climbs back up into the rafters. Once in position, she sees that Aerith is again tending to the flowers, while Zack is sitting on the wooden floor of the nave. They have their backs to each other. Afternoon is turning to evening. Sunrise and sunset are the only times the slums get any direct light, when the sun, low on the horizon, shoots its fading rays under the plate, and for perhaps a quarter of an hour gilds the homes and faces of the poor with a transient loveliness.

Aerith raises her face to the roof. Mink shrinks back into the shadows, but it's the hole in the roof Aerith's looking at. In the evening light, the plate above their heads has turned to gold.

She says, _Hey, Zack, the sky is closer in the city above, right? Kind of scary._ She turns towards him. _But the flowers might like it, maybe…._

He's crying.

His whole body is shaking with sobs. The sound of his hopelessness fills the Church.

Aerith hesitates.

Do it, thinks Mink, do it, do it.

Aerith walks over to Zack, kneels beside him. She put her arms around his shaking shoulders, lays her cheek against his wounded face. He clutches at her. _Aerith. I'm going to pieces._

She kisses him gently, on the temple, just beside the ear. Her fingertips stroke the skin of his neck, the way she touches the flowers. Zack's breath comes in shuddering gasps. Aerith's arms tighten around him. She closes her eyes. Her lips move across his face, kissing his eyebrows, his eyelids, his scarred jaw, his salty cheeks, until at last her mouth finds his.

Both of them are shaking now.

He returns her kiss, tentatively at first, then with increasing passion. His hands run down her arms. Their fingers interlock. She leans into him, pressing herself against his body. One of his hands moves to hold her by the hip, then slowly feels its way upward along the line of her flank to cup her little breast.

Aerith's eyes fly open. There is heat in them, and joy.

She looks straight up, straight into Mink's face.

In the shock of being seen, and the instant understanding that Aerith has known all along she was there, Mink can do nothing but stare back.

Aerith's mouth forms the words _Go away_.

Speechless, Mink nods.

She slips silently through the hole in the roof and walks along the fallen girders to a spot touched by an evening sunbeam. Here she sits. She gives them an hour by her PHS clock. When she returns to the Church, they are gone. A part of the flower bed has been crushed. For a moment it strikes Mink as oddly careless that they would have lain on Aerith's precious flowers. Then she realizes that the flowers don't mind. Their bruised petals are giving off an intense aroma, lavender mixed with rose, the smell of happiness and peace. Inhaling their fragrance, Mink's own heart lifts.

_Who is this girl? _Mink's never asked questions; she makes a point of it. But now she can't help wondering.

She's not got Reno's nose, but the flower smell is so strong that it's easy to track Zack and Aerith through the slums. Nothing else smells like flowers down here. In any case, Mink can guess where they're heading. She was a young girl too, once. She catches up to them as they reach the gate of Elmyra Gainsborough's house, and watches them go in. It looks like Elmyra is out. Mink takes up position in the shadows of an alley opposite, and settles down to watch the street.

It's 19.57 by her PHS when she sees Elmyra appear in the distance, carrying a shopping bag. Mink picks up a couple of pebbles and throws them at Aerith's window. If that doesn't work, the Turk will think of some other stratagem. But just as Elmyra is turning in the gate, Zack Fair exits through the back door, vaults over the fence, and set off down the street at a run. Mink manages to catch a glimpse of his face as he passes. He's smiling.

Oh Aerith, thinks Mink, wise girl. Wise _woman_.

There's no need to keep watching Aerith now that her foster mother is home. Mink sets off after Zack, tails him all the way back to HQ. When she gets back up to the office she sits down straight away and conscientiously writes her surveillance report. She emails it to Tseng as an encrypted attachment. Then she runs through the password sequence for logging off, powers down, tidies some files, and takes herself to bed, feeling that something good has happened today. For a change.


	17. Tonight, In Our Perfect World

**CHAPTER 17: TONIGHT, IN OUR PERFECT WORLD*  
_In which love hurts in all kinds of ways_**

**

* * *

  
**

_Tseng at three a.m._

He is lying alone in a rumpled bed in a room that rents by the hour. Its exact location doesn't matter; he knows many such places. This particular room is on the third floor. Its window looks out onto the street. The sash is raised six inches, admitting a damp, slightly chilly breeze that strokes his bare skin, raising goosebumps. Across the street hangs a neon sign for a 24-hour launderette; its red glow lends the room an illusory warmth. He can hear laughter from the bar on the corner, and footsteps walking along the pavement: the click of a woman's heels, the slap of a man's brogues.

Never the same partner twice. It's easier that way. One less complication. He has tried relationships (he has tried most things); when he was Aerith's age, Zack's age, he had a series of what, for want of a more exact term, might be called lovers. Always the claustrophobia became unbearable.

Through trial and error he grew to understand himself better.

These days he knows what he wants (and what he doesn't want) and where to find it; when he sees what he's looking for they recognize each other even though they've never met before and would look the other way if they passed in the street tomorrow. Drinks are bought and desultory conversation made, really just out of politeness (or the atavistic need for some sort of ritual?) followed by an hour, or less, in a bed that belongs to neither of them. Sometimes he leaves first, but he prefers it when they do. He likes being alone like this, naked in an anonymous room, holding his life at arm's length for a little while. It's a moment of truce in the ongoing battle.

His arm is folded across his face. His eyes are open.

He is thinking of a phrase: _the act of love_.

He considers it from a variety of angles, tests it for its ability to bear weight. It fails. The definition is too narrow.

He has given her a lifetime of devotion. Stood guard. Learnt patience. Been reasonable. Borne pain. Practised silence. All acts of love. Why don't they count?

But these are the thoughts he came here to escape. He tries to blank them out, to focus instead on the experience of breathing: the cool air stealing his heat as it enters his body through the moist passages of his mouth and nose; his diaphragm tightening, the swell of his lungs forcing his ribcage to strain against the muscles of his chest –

It's no good.

What their lovemaking must be like, Zack's and Aerith's, he cannot imagine. Just as well, probably.

* * *

Pages from Aviva's diary

_6th December 2001_

Yes!!! Went on a mission with R today. Joy joy joy!!! Undercover – I wore shorts and stripey thigh socks and my lace-up boots and my new red sleeveless pullover. R in jeans and t-shirt. I hate that black wooly hat he uses, but he has to cover his hair. He puts the goggles on over the hat, to hold it in place. It does make his eyes stand out more. God his eyes are gorgeous. When he was younger they must have been green, but all that materia he takes have made them blueish. Suddenly noticed yesterday that mine are changing too – they used to be jet black, but now they're like the sky just before it's completely night. Kind of makes me feel I'm turning into a different person inside and out. I'm thinking I might grow my hair too.

Our target: gutter press journilist printing lies about Shinra. We had to watch his house for 2 hrs waiting for him to go out. Pure joy!!! We had fun making up imaginery life stories for the people who went past. R must think I'm insane I laugh so much. I was laughing bcz I was so happy just to be with him. When R laughs it gives me the butterflies. I love the shape of his mouth and the way that it moves.

Target went out and we went in – R let me pick the lock. We went straight to target's office where all his computers and printers were set up. R wired up the paint bombs and showed me how to prime the trigger. Next time target sits down to turn on his PC, bang! Poof! – everything soaked in yellow paint, ruined. I said why don't we just shoot him and R said **** you're bloodthirsty, aren't you? But he was laughing. And I said, no come on, seriosly, wouldn't it be simpler? And he said, well, what does the Chief always say? Be discreete. Sometimes people ask questions and this journilist is known to be a critic of the company. Getting him to change his tune is better than silencing him. If we disappere him, fingers will point. So we give him fair warning. If he takes the warning, good for him. Otherwise, we come back. I said, we meaning you and me, and he said, yeah, partner. I love it when he calls me that!!!

Went back to the office and R let me write the report. Even that made me happy. Just writing his name, just writing the initial of his name, makes me happy.

Is six years really such a big difference? When I'm alone I feel so old inside. But when I'm with him, I forget what I used to be. I feel like a new person. I feel I am exactly who he sees, this dumb funny wet-behind-the-ears crazy kid. I like being her….

.

_22nd December 2001_

Rude has a girlfriend!!!! And it looks serious!!!!!!!!

Me and him and R were inspecting the Sector 8 reactor today, double-checking all the plans because the Chief doesn't think they're completely accurrate. When we were finished R wanted to go for drinks like always but Rude didn't want to come. He said he had something else he needed to do. He said it in kind of a shy way that made me and R both realize Rude has something he wants to hide. Usually R can make Rude tell but this time Rude gave him the brush off real firm. So then R told me to follow Rude and find out what gives. R likes to know everything that's going on, but that wasn't his only reason. He always thinks he has to take care of Rude, watch out for him. I kind of didn't want to snoop, because I like Rude and I know how private he is, but on the other hand I kind of did want to, because I'm a nosy parker.

I think Rude must have guessed one of us would follow him. He covered his tracks pretty good, and Rude's kind of noticeable, so he was making a big effort not to be seen. Then I had to stop and help this lady who was being mugged. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I finally found him in _The Lady Luck_, and he's sitting with this GORGEOUS girl!!!! Her name is Chelsy. He must have said 'Chelsy' a million times this evening. I hid behind a big plastic pot plant, but probably I didn't need to. He has eyes for nobody but her. I could practically see the big heart-shaped dream-balloons floating in the air all around them!!! They talked for hours and I got cramp, but it was the sweetest thing and I was kind of glad I got to see it. A different side of Rude.

I envy her. If you-know-who ever looked at me the way Rude was looking at her tonight, I think my heart would stop dead from pure ecstasy. But Chelsey's beautiful. Oh well. Oh sigh.

The really strange thing was, Rude wanted to walk her home but she absolutely refused to let him. Why? All night she was looking like she couldn't wait to fall into his arms….

_._

_23rd December 2001_

Told R today about Rude and Chelsy and how in love they were. He laughed a lot and said sneaky basterd. I told him about how Chelsy refused to let Rude leave the restaurant with her or walk her home. R said that's weird. I said what? And he said maybe it means something or maybe nothing. Maybe she's just not that kind of girl. Too bad for Rude, eh? Then he said that actually he was a bit pissed off. Why hadn't Rude told him, when he tells Rude everything? I said, you know Rude can keep a secret but Rude knows you're a big gossip. And R said, not when it's serious. Which is true. So R said he would get to the bottom of it, and he left to go see what was happening at the _Lady Luck_. And I came home and wrote this.

_._

_24th December, Winterday_

It's my lunch break. I just want to write quickly what happened yesterday with R and Rude and Chelsey. When R got to the _Lady Luck_ yesterday he saw Chelsy acting very suspicious. Rude went to the bathroom, and she picked up his phone from the counter and started fiddling with it, but then put it back down and looked all around like people do when they feel guilty. (R acted it out for me).

So R waited until Chelsy left, and the same thing happened, that Rude wanted to go with her but she refused. R followed her (which I probably should have done) and she went down into the storm drains and inside the plate, and met up with some other people, and it turns out they are AVALANCHE!!!!

I feel _sick_ writing this.

R said he could have killed her then and I know what he means. But he stayed hidden and listened and one of the AVALANCHE guys asked her if she'd managed to bug Rude's phone and she said she didn't get a chance. But she did. She could have bugged it while he was in the bathroom. So she was lying to AVALANCHE as well as to Rude.

What the %&*#! is going on?!?!?!

I said to R well why didn't you DO something and he said he wants to wait and see what happens, because Chelsy's promised to meet Rude at the Tree of Lights tonight.

R told me all this just now and he's asked me to go with him after work to follow Rude and make sure he's OK. So that's the plan. We're going to teach that lying Chelsy b***h a lesson she won't forget…..

_._

_25th December_

I feel so low today.

Nothing turned out the way I expected. I guess I should start at the beginning. R and I were heading for the Tree of Lights when the Chief called and said there'd been an outbreak of chimera bugs from the sewers and sent us to find the nest and destroy it. That wasn't hard, but it took a while. Then on our way back out of the sewers we heard a voice we both recognised. It was Chelsy!!!! We crept forward. She was talking to some guys – AVALANCHE – and she was pleading with them and crying and saying she didn't want to be part of the plot any longer. The basterds attacked her!!!! That's when R and I moved in and killed them. There were four of them. It felt so good. I hadn't realized before then just how furious I was for what they'd done to Rude.

I nearly killed Chelsey too but R stopped me. He put the point of his rod against her chest just where her heart is and he said if you've got one, start talking. She said she'd been working with AVALANCHE for just a couple of months and they'd told her to get close to Rude and bug his phone so as to infiltrate us. I shouted at her, I said how could you do that? He really loves you! Don't you know how lucky you are?!! She said that once she got to know him and saw what a great guy he was, she started to fall in love with him too, and that's why she was trying to get out of AVALANCHE. But AVALANCHE don't let anyone leave. I said why do you hate Shinra? Why do you hate us? She said she didn't know what she felt about anything any more, but she knew it was all over with her and Rude.

R said, we have safe houses, we can take care of you. You have information we can use. She said she wasn't a traitor. Kill me if you have to, she said, I don't care. I've already punished myself and fallen in love with a man I can never see again. She said, tell him I'm sorry. Maybe in our next lives we can meet again and it will all work out. She was crying so much. I felt like my own heart was breaking.

So I said to R what should we do? And he said The Chief ordered us to get rid of the bugs and we've done that so let's go. And then he said to Chelsy Don't ever let me see your face again, because I'll kill you. And then we left her there. We went to the Tree of Lights and saw Rude waiting. R made me go tell him. He said it would be easier coming from me.

But it wasn't easy. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. For once I was glad that he wears those sunglasses all the time so I didn't have to see the look in his eyes.

And then R comes sauntering in and he's like, hey, partner, what's with the long face? Like he doesn't know. And Rude tells him to Shut the **** up, and swears at him for a while, letting all his feelings out. R just stands there and takes it. And then he says, it's kind of cold, let's go find somewhere warm.

So we go to the Goblins. Rude didn't say anything for a long time. We just sat there round the table, R, Rude, me. After a while I felt like I wanted to hold Rude's hand, so I did. And then Rude said, I'm not surprised. It never felt right. Makes sense it was an act all along.

I said, That's not true. She loved you. She did, didn't she, Reno? She really did love you. You have to believe me.

And he turns to R and he says kind of slowly, what does that mean, though?

I said, It means you're a great guy. She saw it. She wanted to hate you but she couldn't because you're so fantastic. You _made_ her love you just by being you. I was saying anything that came into my head to make him feel better.

He said, I'm lucky. I have good friends. And he bent over quite a long way because he's so tall and I'm so titchy, and he kissed my cheek. It was sweet. I was glad I'd cheered him up just a little bit.

But I wish it had been R who kissed me.

In our next lives, maybe all our dreams will come true.

Oh, I wish.

* * *

_*Author's note: the title of this chapter is the same as the corresponding episode of Before Crisis; it is one of the chapters that follow the script of BC very closely. Once again, all praise to DarkAngel and her Gunshot Romance site, and to SandG for his summaries. _


	18. Unanswered Questions

**CHAPTER 18: UNANSWERED QUESTIONS  
-OR -  
****THINGS MIGHT JUST BE STARTING TO LOOK UP**_**  
In which the Turks go on the offensive in more ways than one, and Reno receives an unexpected item in the mail.**_

_**

* * *

**_

The board meeting on the sixth of January was particularly lively.

Rude had, as a matter of course, reported what had taken place with Chelsy to Commander Veld, and Veld had, as a matter of duty, circulated among the Directors an edited account of the incident, from which all names had been deleted. President Shinra, annoyed at being bilked of an identifiable scapegoat, was venting his irritation on Veld – but then, taking the flak was, as Reno might have said, what the Chief was for.

"It's been a year since AVALANCHE first made its presence felt, and you still haven't given me anything useful. What are your Turks _doing?_" the Old Man demanded.

"Aside from squashing bugs, flirting with the receptionists, and running up tabs at every cheap dive in town?" added Scarlett with a glint in her eye.

Veld answered as calmly as he could, "I don't think it's fair to say we have achieved nothing this year. SOLDIER recruitment is at its highest level since that peak we hit just before the war. The Wuteng rebel bases inside Midgar have all been neutralised. In the past twelve months the quantity of free press hostile to Shinra has gone down by three quarters, and Sector 8 has only suffered four civilian casualties due to monsters. Right now, Shinra's approval rating in the popular opinion polls stands at eighty-two percent. I think these are significant achievements. It's true we have not yet eliminated AVALANCHE, but we _have_ prevented them from doing any serious damage – "

"The loss of my data disk," interrupted Hojo. "Is that not serious?"

Veld bent his head. "I concede the loss of the data disk. If Director Heidegger had allowed me to send more than one Turk to accompany Dr Rayleigh, it might not have happened – "

"Don't you start blaming me, you twisty bugger," Heidegger grunted.

Veld raised his eyebrows, and went on, "Genesis and Angeal have both been eliminated – "

"By SOLDIER," said Scarlet.

Veld glanced across at Lazard. The SOLDIER Director had taken off his glasses and was rubbing his eyes. He looked washed out, exhausted. Beside him, Reeve Tuesti was doodling plans for slum regeneration projects: houses, sewers, plumbing, parks, and schools that would never, in any sense of the word, see the light of day.

"By Administrative Research and SOLDIER working together," Veld replied. "Hollander's in custody in Junon and the stolen documents have been retrieved. The attacks on the Sector 8 reactor and on Junon were both thwarted – "

"By Sephiroth," said the Old Man.

Veld wanted to punch him then.

The Commander had a thick skin. He could take anything that was thrown at him personally. Heidegger and Scarlett had been gunning for him for years; their enmity was to be expected. And the President had always been capricious. To handle him one had to keep a cool head.

But when somebody belittled his Turks, Veld's blood boiled.

Through clenched teeth he replied, "You seem to forget, sir, that Reno and Aviva saved your life at least twice that day, at very considerable risk to their own –"

"If you expect me to start being grateful to my employees for doing their jobs, then you've got another think coming. You need to get your priorities straight. AVALANCHE is the single biggest danger facing this company right now. We need information. We need answers. And your department is not coming up with the goods."

"Sir, with all due respect, I resent the implication that we're neglecting the AVALANCHE threat. Let me remind you that my entire staff here at head office numbers less than the First Classes in SOLDIER. We've followed up every lead, no matter how tenuous. But we're stretched to full capacity. My staff are working flat out. Nobody's had a holiday for over a year."

"I don't pay them to take holidays," the Old Man snarled. "I pay for results. I want AVALANCHE stamped out. Now. Hire more Turks if you have to, Veld – "

"Sir!" protested Scarlett and Heidegger together. They were startled, and Veld didn't blame them; he hadn't expected the argument to take this sudden turn in his favour either.

The Old Man fixed them with his coldest stare. "I want it done," he said.

_This might be a vote of confidence_, thought Veld, though with the President one never knew. The Old Man's tendency to make rash decisions on the spur of the moment was becoming more pronounced as he grew older. Still, it was a result, and Veld would take what he could get right now.

"Thank you, sir," he said. "More staff will help. But you also need to remember that SOLDIER is in charge of what happens at the front. If we are to move effectively against AVALANCHE, we need their full cooperation."

"You have my cooperation," said Lazard from the other end of the table. "Surely you know that?"

He sounded tired. More than tired – bone-weary. Defeated.

"I think," said their sixteen-year-old Vice-President, speaking for the first time during this meeting,"That Veld means the cooperation of the men under your so-called command."

"Rufus, that's enough," said the Old Man sharply.

"But Father – oh, I'm sorry; I mean, Mr President - AVALANCHE is making a mockery of us. Is this really the best we can do? To shuffle blame around this table like a pack of cards? If this is the way we do business, no wonder our enemies have the upper hand."

The Old Man bridled. "Do you have a problem with the way I run my company?"

"Not a problem, no. But I have some questions. How is it that AVALANCHE are able to anticipate our every move? How is it they always know where SOLDIER and the Turks are going to be? It seems blindingly obvious to me that they're getting their information from somewhere – or someone. Well, Veld?"

"Stop stirring it," said Lazard. "We all know Veld is above suspicion."

"Speak for yourself," snapped Scarlett.

"No one's above suspicion," said Rufus smoothly. "Not even me. Or you."

"I damn well am," said the Old Man. "And I make the decisions around here. Veld, I want you to find this leak and plug it. Do whatever it takes. I want results, and I want them soon. Or else."

"Understood," said the Commander.

* * *

_13th January 2002_

Reno reached into his pigeonhole and pulled out a pile of junk mail. Coupons for a linens sale at Robsons… a brochure for a cruise line… an estate agent's circular… the newsletter for the Red Leather fanclub. Several years ago he'd briefly hooked up with the then membership secretary, who'd put his name on the mailing list, and even though he'd never paid a sub in his life the monthly outpouring of infatuated trivia from the poncey dead git's fan-ghouls continued to arrive in his box with depressing regularity.

He tossed the lot into the wastepaper bin, and was about to walk away, when out of the corner of his eye he realized that something stiff and shiny had fallen from between the pages of the newsletter. Doubling back, he reached into the bin and fished out a postcard.

When he saw her handwriting, his heart began to beat a little faster.

_I guess nothing lasts forever_, she had written. _Not even my anger at you. When I first got here, I loved the solitude. Now I'm starting to feel lonely. I think that's a good sign._

There was no signature, no return address, no postmark, no stamp. He turned the card over. The image on the front was a sepia-tinted photograph of the Sector Eight Clock Arch.

Where in all the world was she? Tseng knew, but he wasn't telling; Reno's attempts to finagle a hint out of him had so far met with failure. This reference to solitude was his first and only clue. It sounded like she was somewhere remote and uninhabited…. Yet wasn't it true that often the loneliest place of all was in a crowd of strangers…?

His phone rang.

"What are you doing?" Rosalind demanded. "You should have relieved me twenty minutes ago. Come on, Reno – I covered for you a week ago and you still owe me."

"Be right there," he promised, tucking the postcard into his jacket's inside pocket.

The previous seven days had been insanely busy: the Department had never known anything like it. With the big push on to take fight into the enemy's camp, the Turks were lucky to get half an hour's sleep at a stretch, and even that had to be snatched while flying in helicopters, or sitting at their desks with their heads pillowed on stacks of printouts. Rosalind kept the coffee in the kitchen hot and strong.

Rude and Reno had spent much of the last week trying to gather information on the 'Ravens', the black AVALANCHE operatives who had ambushed Dr Rayleigh and Aviva on the train. They had begun their investigation by flying to Cosmo Canyon, to cross-examine that irritatingly buoyant old hippie, Bugenhagen. Rosalind's research had already established that Fuhito had, a few years back, spent some time as Bugenhagen's pupil at the Centre for the Study of Planet Life, but had left after an unspecified disagreement. When questioned, Bugenhagen could not, or would not, shed much light on this matter. He recognised Fuhito's description, remembered him as someone clever but aloof, and said he wasn't surprised to hear about the terrorist activities, but the fact was – he hooted – students were always coming and going, and he was an old man: his memory wasn't what it used to be.

Reno personally felt that a little electric shock therapy would have done wonders for the old fraud's powers of recall. Unfortunately, they were under orders to handle him with kid gloves. Bugenhagen had a lot of friends in all sorts of places. Shame.

Back in Midgar, he and Rude combed through the routine intelligence reports filed by the company's branch offices and military outposts; they tapped deep into the department's informal network of stool pigeons, the paid informants and the private detectives Veld kept on retainer; they questioned every one of the scientists involved, however insignificantly, in the SOLDIER enhancement program, on the off-chance that someone might be hiding something. So far, they'd come up with zip.

For an organization that seemed to be pretty substantial, AVALANCHE was good at covering its tracks. On the 48th floor of the Shinra building, tempers were growing short. The Turks were not used to being outsmarted.

With a mug of black coffee in his hand, and Cissnei's postcard on his mind, Reno went to the surveillance room on the floor between floors, where Rosalind had spent the last six hours scanning radio frequencies in search of possible AVALANCHE transmissions. "My head's _killing_ me," she snapped, yanking off the headphones and throwing them at him. "I'm going to go close my eyes for an hour. If Tseng calls, tell him I'm dead."

* * *

Tseng, meanwhile, was in Costa del Sol, standing on the porch of a lemon coloured villa. The door and the window shutters had been painted a dark blue since the last time he was here. On either side of the front porch stood terracotta pots filled with scarlet and white geraniums. He had walked up from the harbour in the blazing heat; sweat trickled between his shoulder blades. He wiped his face with a handkerchief, and rang the bell.

The Legendary Turk answered the door dressed in surfing trunks, a hooded cotton pullover, sunglasses, and flip-flops. His thick, reddish-blond hair had grown to touch his collar, and he sported a pair of sideburns along the line of his jaw. There was a gun in his hand; old habits died hard. When he saw Tseng, he stuffed the gun into his waistband and grinned in a way that was as much wolfish as friendly. "Come in, kiddo."

They walked through to the patio. On the way Tseng caught a glimpse through a half-closed door of a dark-skinned girl asleep on a bed. Out on the patio were a hammock and a pair of striped deck-chairs. Rather reluctantly, Tseng folded himself into one of these. Charlie offered him a sherry on the rocks. Tseng declined. Charlie poured himself a large one and stretched out in the hammock. Beyond the shade of the patio's thatch stretched a private yellow beach, and then the rolling blue surf.

"As prisons go," Tseng said, "This is tolerable, I suppose."

He was merely making conversation. The day was headache-inducingly bright. Tseng was always relieved when the time came to leave Costa and return to the subtle half-tones of Midgar. Charlie sipped his drink, saying nothing. Tseng decided to get straight to the point.

"Someone's leaking information to AVALANCHE. From the top."

"No kidding."

"What do you mean?"

"It had to be something. You and Veld never drop by for no reason, just to say hello."

"I can't speak for the Commander," said Tseng, "But personally, I have a hard time seeing you like this."

Charlie laughed. "Happy, you mean?"

"Does living like this make you happy?"

"It sure beats working. So… Information leak. Don't know anything about it. Sorry. Is that all you came to ask? Or was that just your way of leading up to another little chat about me turning to work? Because if it was, don't bother."

Tseng watched the surf ebb and flow while he turned over various replies in his mind. Charlie rocked the hammock with one foot, and sipped on his drink.

Tseng said, "We need you. That's obvious. But I think you need us more. You're fading away in the sun here, Charlie. No one talks about you much any more. The new Turks don't even know your name. You're ancient history. In ten year's time you'll be propping up the bar at the Del Sol and buying strangers drinks so they'll hang around long enough to listen to your stories. If that makes you happy, fine."

Charlie swung the hammock back and forth for a while, saying nothing. Tseng held his peace. The loudest sound was the chink of the ice in Charlie's glass.

"Could you do me a favour, Tseng?" said Charlie at last. "Tell Veld to send one of his cute young girl recruits next time. That way I can have something to feast my eye on while I'm busy not listening. Now don't let me keep you. You can find your own way out."

Tseng left, having done what he came to do. The conversation had gone pretty much as he expected. The Legend's pride was his weakness, but it was also their opportunity. Now they would have to wait and see.

* * *

Three hours later, the dial of the radio scanner was still slowly working its way through the frequencies. The successive bands of atmospheric crackle had become so much white noise in Reno's ears. For the twentieth time, he had taken out Cissnei's postcard and was re-reading it.

_I guess nothing lasts forever, not even my anger against you…_

Well, at least he was no longer her public enemy number one. But what else was included in _nothing_? What was she hinting at? How else had her feelings changed?

…_Now I'm starting to feel lonely. I think that's a good sign._

What was that supposed to mean? Lonely in general? Lonely for someone in particular? Why was that good? Good for who? -

"Are you all right there?" asked Rosalind in the doorway.

Quickly he slipped the postcard back into his pocket. Rosalind appeared not to have seen it. She came in and set a fresh mug of coffee beside his elbow.

"You look better," he said.

"I feel better. I can take over now, if you want."

Just then it occurred to Reno that he might be acting like an idiot, reading far too much into a simple postcard. For all he knew, Cissnei had sent postcards to everyone in the office, and had confided to them all that she was feeling a bit lonesome...

"Hey, Roz," he asked as casually as he could, "D'you ever hear from Ciss?"

Rosalind shook her head. "Not a word. But I don't expect to. She – "

Her voice was drowned by the high pitch whine that had suddenly filled his ears. He clamped both hands to the headphones.

"What is it?" she cried.

"Hang on! Sssh!"

They both held their breath. The whine became a hum, dropped in pitch, and resolved into the distinct sound of a human voice rising and falling.

"I've got something," he told her.

"No! Where? Let me see – " Rosalind pushed round his chair to take a look at the dial. "It's a non-allocated frequency, all right," she agreed.

Reno flipped a switch to lock into the wavelength. Both of them turned their eyes to the map on the screen, where a green circle was rapidly zooming in on the Northern Continent, coming to rest at last on a spot about thirty kilometers north of Icicle Inn.

"What are they saying?" she asked him.

"It's too garbled – I can't make it out."

"It's them," she breathed.

"Roz, don't we have a base there?"

"Not that far north. And not on that frequency. It's them. It's AVALANCHE. It has to be." Overcome with delight, Rosalind threw her arms around Reno's neck and planted a kiss on his cheek.

"You," she laughed, "Are bloody brilliant."

* * *

"You're sure this is AVALANCHE headquarters?" said Lazard to Commander Veld an hour later.

They were standing side by side in Lazard's office, studying the map of the Northern Continent that was flickering on his wall monitor. Veld's answer was curt. "We can't be sure of anything until we check it out. But the odds are good."

"Who are you sending?"

"Knox and Reno."

Lazard inclined his head. "I'll brief my men and have them stand by. Our base is about fifteen kliks to the south. Here -" he indicated the position with one long, gloved finger.

Of all the many things about Lazard that got up Veld's nose, those white linen gloves irked him the most. They were more than an affectation. Like the emails stuffed full of double-meanings that he circulated from time to time, they were an exercise in hypocrisy. If he didn't want to get his hands dirty, why had he accepted this Directorship? If he disapproved of the way his father did business, why didn't he resign? Instead, he sat on the fence, enjoying all the benefits of being a Shinra executive while badmouthing the company to its employees in the slyest possible way – and that, in Veld's eyes, was the act of a coward.

That the Old Man had chosen to give his bastard son command of SOLDIER was an error of judgement for which, Veld was sure, the company had not yet finished paying, not by a long chalk. He'd advised against it, and suggested something harmless like HR or Marketing, but the Old Man would have his own way.

The Old Man felt guilty about Lazard. Veld saw no reason why he should. Though he had left Lazard's mother in order to marry the young society beauty who would eventually die giving birth to Rufus, it had never been his intention to abandon his older son. Lazard's mother was the one who had chosen to disappear into the slums, taking their child with her, and for eight years Veld had sought her in vain. Finally he had come across her by accident in a charity clinic in Sector Two; she was slurring her words like an alcoholic, though the doctors said it was a degenerative disease. Lazard, by then aged twelve, had had no idea who his father was, and the Old Man had been happy to leave it that way: his young wife was having difficulties conceiving, and the last thing he needed was a scandal that might tear apart the already fragile harmony of his domestic life.

Lazard's mother had been put in a nursing home, and the boy had gone to boarding school, where he did well. Then there had been the internship at the bank, followed by the move to Shinra, and the rapid ascent up the corporate ladder that had set tongues wagging. Lazard's relationship to the Old Man, though never officially acknowledged, was now an open secret. Lazard himself did not speak of it in public, or, as far as Veld could discover, in private either. With Cissnei he had never referred to the Old Man as anything other than _The President._

Perhaps he liked to pretend to himself that he had risen so far on his own merits. But if all he was guilty of was self-deception… well, who wasn't? Incompetence and cowardice did not, on their own, constitute treachery. Lazard was weak. He was embittered. But according to Cissnei, he was also a man whose principles ran deep. Did he really have the nerve, or the desire, to be a traitor?

Veld asked him, "What kind of force do we have up there?"

"Two platoons of troopers. A dozen Thirds. And two Seconds – Essai Yevtushenko and Sebastian Bold."

"That's a lot of manpower for a monster hunting mission," Veld observed.

Though his tone had been neutral, the implication was inescapable. Lazard's body tensed. _Guilt?_ wondered the Turk. Certainly Lazard seemed to have been taken by surprise. It took him several moments to put together a response.

"Commander Veld," he said at last, "You are a man whom I respect. I think I've made that clear these last few years. So please, do me the favour of being straight with me. Do you suspect me of leaking information to AVALANCHE?"

"I suspect everyone," Veld replied.

"Guilty until proven innocent. Is that how it works?"

Veld made a noise that was partly a chuckle, partly a grunt acknowledging Lazard was right. "Everyone is guilty of something," he told him, "In my experience, at least."

* * *

Next morning, after seeing Knox and Reno off, the Commander returned from the rooftop helipad to find the Director of SOLDIER pacing back and forth in his office. Lazard's face was ashen. Without any preamble, he said, "We've lost radio contact with the base."

It was bad news, and yet…. Veld realized he wasn't surprised.

"Phones?" he asked.

"They're ringing. No one's answering." Lazard paused.

"What about your Seconds?"

"We've been unable to get in touch with them."

"What?" Veld could not keep the disbelief out of his voice. "_Both_ of them?"

Lazard closed his eyes with an air of resigned helplessness, and nodded. Veld grabbed him and shook him. "Don't go to sleep, man! When did this happen?"

"Just now."

"Bloody hell." Veld ground his teeth. "Someone tipped them off."

"So it would appear. Commander, listen – I'm aware of what this makes me sound like, but if I were you I'd call my men back. You don't know what they're flying into."

Veld treated this suggestion with the contempt it deserved. Turning his back on Lazard, he took out his phone and made two calls: the first to Tseng, to brief him, and the second over the radio link to Knox. "Re-route to Icicle Inn and proceed by chocobo," he ordered. "The first priority is to avoid detection. Find out what happened at the base, and report to Tseng."

Snapping the phone shut, he headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" Lazard asked.

"To inform the President."

"Shall I come with you?"

The Commander did not hesitate. "No."

Five minutes later he walked into the penthouse on the 70th floor. The Old Man was busy working at his desk, while Rufus lay stretched out on the floor underneath the window, reading a comic, his golden head pillowed against Dark Nation's purple flank. The boy had had a growth spurt in the last year, and had recently taken to wearing oddly-cut assymetrical suits in layers of black and white; Veld supposed it must be the fashion amongst teenagers these days.

The Old Man looked up. "Veld? What's happened?"

All the President's hopes for a swift and final end to the AVALANCHE crisis were riding on this mission. He was, as Veld well knew, an irrepressible optimist. He had always been the one with the vision; the job of those around him was to make that vision happen. The likelihood of setbacks, the possibility of failure, never seriously entered into his calculations. In the President's imagination, AVALANCHE had already been brought to their knees.

His anger at the news thus took the form of righteous indignation, as if he had been robbed of something that belonged to him, or cheated out of a prize that he had won fair and square. Picking up a carved ashtray, he hurled it at the window – but the glass was bullet proof, and the ashtray fell to the floor, cracking the marble tile.

"_Two_ Second Classes!" he cried. "How? It's impossible. Who betrayed us, Veld? Who?"

Rufus, unperturbed, turned the page of his comic.

"I don't know," Veld admitted.

"Why the hell don't you know? I told you to plug that leak!"

"What do you want me to do? Put the entire Board under arrest?"

The Old Man's fist clenched around a paperweight. "Damn it, Veld. My Board can't be the only suspects."

"Who else has access to that kind of information?"

"What about your Turks?"

"Don't be stupid, Father," Rufus interrupted, laying his comic aside. "The Turks have more to lose than anybody if this company goes under."

"Goes under?" the Old Man sputtered. "What are you talking about? You think a bunch of crazy vermin could bring down this company? We have what the world wants, Rufus. We _are_ what the world wants. Who the hell wants AVALANCHE? In fact…." The Old Man hesitated. A sly smile lightened his face. "If you look at it another way, the lousy scum have done us a favour."

"What do you mean?" asked his son.

"Everyone knows the man on the Sector Eight omnibus is an ungrateful bastard -"

"The who?" Rufus interrupted.

"It's a saying," Veld explained. "The man in the street. Joe Public."

"People are quick to forget what they owe us," the President went on. "They take the good times for granted. But when AVALANCHE threatens us, it makes people think. What would their lives be like without Shinra? Where would they be? Back in the bad old days, that's where."

Rufus looked thoughtful. "So you're saying a little terrorism is good for P.R.?"

"I'm saying that they served a purpose they didn't intend. But they've worn out their welcome. They're starting to make us look weak. It's time we got rid of them once and for all. Since we've lost the element of surprise we'll have to settle with AVALANCHE first, and deal with our mole later. Veld, I want to launch an immediate assault. Liaise with Heidegger and Lazard."

"We can't attack if we don't know what we're facing. Let my men finish their recce -"

"They can reconnoitre while Lazard and Heidegger muster the troops. You've got twenty-four hours. And tell Lazard to get Sephiroth on the case."

"Sephiroth's on another mission," said Veld. "With Zack Fair."

"All right, leave Sephiroth where he is. Pull Zack, and put him in charge of this assignment. It'll be a good opportunity to see what he's made of."

"I think it's Hojo," said Rufus.

The two old men turned to look at him. "What?" said his father.

"If you were to ask me who is the least loyal director on the Board, I'd say Hojo. He's a shark. He follows the smell of blood. Plus he's a hack. The only useful thing he's ever done for this company was the development of the mako enhancement procedure, and even that was mostly Gast's work. I think the mole is Hojo."

"Hojo has everything he wants right here," President Shinra affirmed with confidence. "He's the last man who would betray us. Just read your comic, Rufus, and leave business to the men who understand it."

* * *

_PHS Transcript, 14 January 2002, 21.56 pm_

_Knox: Survey completed, sir._

_Tseng: What did you find?_

_Knox: It's AVALANCHE, all right, and it's big. Could be their H.Q. They've dug in under the ice. It's almost impossible to see from the outside. _

_Tseng: What do you put their strength at?_

_Knox: Maybe several hundred men? And monsters – Guard Hounds and Grand Horns._

_Tseng: Did you have any trouble?_

_Knox: Nothing we couldn't handle. _

_Tseng: Are you back at the base now?_

_Knox: Yes. It's not ideal, but we have to have shelter. We've posted lookouts. Most of our men were only knocked out. They're back on their feet now. _

_Tseng: What about the two SOLDIERs?_

_Knox: AVALANCHE took them._

_[__static__]_

_Tseng: Are they dead?_

_Knox: No. We found them. They were being held in tanks filled with some sort of dark liquid. Reno and I freed them. They seem to be OK._

_Tseng: Tanks? Like cloning tanks?_

_Knox: Apparently AVALANCHE use the tanks to regenerate their Ravens._

_Tseng: The Ravens…._

_Knox: I've counted four so far. They seem to be almost indestructible. I fought one in the tank room and thought I'd killed it, but when we got outside, it had regenerated. The AVALANCHE guy with the glasses – Fuhito – said it was defective. He killed it with a mako gun. _

_Tseng: Are they human?_

_Knox: Hard to tell. I think maybe they were once, sir…_

Tanks? Liquids? Human experiments? Monsters that could not die? Reading the transcript, Veld turned these vivid images over in his mind, and was troubled by the possibilities they suggested. The 'Ravens' sounded like Hojo's kind of operation. AVALANCHE had stolen Hojo's disk, true… But the data on the disk had been about something different. And in any case, AVALANCHE had used Ravens to steal the disk, so they must have known how to make those black operatives since well before last July. Where had they learnt the technique? Who had shown it to them?

Could it be that Rufus was right?

Was Hojo breaking loose from his gilded cage?


	19. Beneath the Ice

**CHAPTER 19: BENEATH THE ICE  
_In which Reno and Zack become partners on an unforeseen mission, and Reno remembers something he forgot_**

**_

* * *

_**

The thermometer read twenty-seven degrees below zero. Despite their ichthyornis-down jackets and fur-lined boots, the troopers were freezing. The SOLDIERs had too much mako in their veins, and the Turks had taken too much materia, to feel the cold, but that didn't mean they couldn't get frostbite like everyone else. The essential thing was to keep moving.

"Where the hell is Zack?" demanded Reno.

They found him asleep in the back of a truck. He woke up laughing, and not at all apologetic.

But when he walked out in front of the troopers and the Second and Third classes, a change took place. The men stood up straighter, looked more alert. A positive energy charged the atmosphere. They were ready to follow where Zack led; they were ready and willing to fight.

Knox turned to Reno and said, "There's a man Shinra can't afford to lose." He got a grunt in reply.

They moved out in a convoy of trucks. The danger point would be the bridge ten kilometers ahead, a bottleneck over a steep crevasse. About a kilometer before the bridge, the convoy came under attack from guard hounds. Zack leapt from the truck and killed the first wave of animals, wielding Angeal's impossibly huge sword as easily if it were made of balsa wood. More hounds appeared. The two Second Classes and the Turks joined the fight, and gradually it came about that Knox, Essai and Sebastian cleared the way in front of the convoy, while Zack and Reno guarded it from behind. In this manner they battled their way to the bridge. The trucks crossed safely, and Zack and Reno were bringing up the rear, when, without warning, the uprights splintered and gave way. The bridge came apart beneath their feet, and they fell, SOLDIER and Turk, into the depths of the crevasse.

.

"We've lost contact," said Veld to the President.

"With Zack?"

"With everyone."

"Not looking good," said Rufus.

.

_What a strange light_, thought Reno dreamily as he opened his eyes. _Kind of dusky blue, almost night, with flickering shadows and spots of brightness. Like being deep beneath the sea. But I'm not. Am I?_

Far, far above him a crack of sunshine glittered. The air that filled his lungs was chilly and damp. Sheer rock walls, encrusted with black ice, loomed over him on every side. Reno realized that his clothes felt wet, and after another moment saw that he was lying in a deep pile of snow. Rubbing his head, he sat up and looked around.

So. Now it was starting to come back to him: Northern Continent. Avalanche attack. Broken bridge. Long fall into deep canyon, and no way out… except, maybe, that cave there -

"You OK?" said a voice.

_Oh no,_ thought Reno, _no, no, no…._

Zack's face swooped into focus, peering intently at Reno with every appearance of concern. The effect was like having a bright blue flashlight shone into his eyes at point blank range. It _hurt_. Reno rolled away from the SOLDIER's inquisitive gaze and got to his feet, blinking. Spots danced across his field of vision.

"Shit," he muttered, rubbing his hand over the back of his head and feeling an egg-sized bump coming up.

This couldn't be happening. Maybe he was having a hallucination. Yeah – that must be it. He'd hit his head and now he was dreaming he was trapped in an icy crevasse on the Northern Continent with Zack Fair, of all people. It was like the worst kind of materia-induced nightmare. Reno screwed his eyes shut and willed himself to wake up.

"That was some fall," said Zack. "You must be pretty tough, huh?"

Reno cracked open one eye and glared at him. "Yeah, you think?"

"Hey!" Zack threw his hands in the air. "Don't look at me. I didn't do anything. The trucks must have weakened the bridge. It was probably pretty old. At least there's no bones broken."

Reno dug into his pocket and took out his phone.

"What are you doing?" asked Zack.

"Calling HQ."

Zack laughed. "No signal down here, man."

By sheer effort of will Reno managed to hide his dismay as he put the useless phone away. He'd never been out of contact with HQ before, never been unable to ask the Chief or Tseng what he ought to do next. It felt like his umbilical cord had been cut. To calm himself, he went through the routine of checking his weapons. Both his guns were intact. Good. God only knew what monsters they might encounter down in these uncharted regions. He still had all his materia. Good. The mag-rod had not been broken in the fall. Good. If they couldn't find a route out of here, he could use the materia and the rod to melt a path through the ice. Though there was always the danger of a cave-in if he tried that -

"You're a walking arsenal, aren't you?" said Zack, in a tone of mingled admiration and surprise. "I never knew. For a long time I thought you guys were just the dirty tricks brigade. But you can really fight, can't you?"

_Just let it roll off you,_ Reno told himself. The priority was to complete the mission. By whatever means necessary. Even if it meant partnering up with Zack Fair.

Meanwhile, Zack had turned round and walked a little way into the mouth of the cave. "Hey, Reno," he called out, sounding excited. "Come look at this."

Reno was following anyway; he had no choice. _Oh God, _he thought_, what's the hick getting so amped about now?_ - but when he came up behind Zack's shoulder, and was able to see into the cave, he could not help catching his breath. The place was like the inside of a crystal ball, a bubble of glass blown into the glacier and shot through with shimmering rainbows. Beneath their feet the ice was clear blue, smooth as glass; the fractures in the ice shone like frozen lightning bolts, reflecting and magnifying what light there was. Thousands, or even tens of thousands of icicles hung from the ceiling; Reno couldn't begin to count them all. A low-pitched groaning came and went all around them, combined with a crackling, tinkling sound like chandeliers rustling in the breeze. So beautiful; so eerie.

To himself Zack murmured, "Wish I could show this to her – " then turned to Reno with a big grin on his face. "Man," he said, "It's times like these I remember why being in SOLDIER is the best job in the world. Isn't this place awesome? I've never seen anything like it. It's so unspoilt. I wonder – are we the first human beings ever to set eyes on it?"

"Yeah, we're lucky bunnies," Reno replied. "Now let's go."

"Which way?"

"That way," Reno jerked his head.

"Are you sure? How do you know?"

"Fresh air. Colder air. Smell it? It comes from the surface."

Zack sniffed. His heightened SOLDIER senses picked up the scent of a way out. He smiled and nodded. "You lead. I'll follow."

They had gone perhaps a dozen steps, when Reno heard, high above his head, a sharp grating sound like the neck of a wine-glass snapping. He stepped aside, and a split-second later the falling icicle hit the spot where he had been standing. It was so sharp and so hard that it landed without breaking and buried itself six inches deep in the ice.

"Close one," said Zack; adding, perhaps unnecessarily, "If that had hit you, it would've killed you."

The vibrations from his voice broke loose the icicle above his own head. Snatching Angeal's sword from his back, he shattered the icicle with a single blow. Reno ducked to avoid the flying fragments. Shards of ice struck other icicles, triggering a chain reaction; all around them the glassy spears showered down, smashing and crashing with a noise like a ten-car pile up. Reno crouched low, protecting his head with his arms.

Silence fell. He looked up. Zack's head and shoulders were covered with a layer of snow and ice chips. Reno supposed he must look the same. Cold meltwater was beginning to trickle down his neck. For about ten meters in every direction, every single icicle had fallen from the ceiling - but beyond, there were hundreds and hundreds more, hanging on a hair's trigger, ready to drop at the slightest sound.

He and Zack looked questioningly at each other.

_Run?_ mouthed Zack.

Reno hesitated, then nodded.

They sprinted across the slippery floor, with Reno in the lead zig-zagging around the icicles as they fell, and Zack following behind, slashing and hacking. Their mad breathless dash took less than a minute, and then they were safe on the other side of the cave.

"Oh yeah!" Zack crowed, twirling his sword, as the final echoes of breaking ice died away. "It sure is fun out here in snow country!"

Reno too felt pumped, exhilarated – alive! – but he'd be damned if he'd share this feeling, or any, with Zack Fair. So he mentally stamped on the flames of his delight, and turned away to seek along the wall for the source of the fresh air.

He found a tunnel slanting upwards, slippery and smooth.

"Big enough?" asked Zack.

"Seems to be."

"Looks like we're getting out of here, then. Good thing these boots have traction. How about you? No wait, don't tell me. You've got special Turk boots, right? Bet you can walk upside down on ceilings. The human fly!"

_If we don't escape before we run out of food,_ thought Reno, _I guess I can always eat him._

The tunnel was steep, and the climb was hard work. In several places the shaft became almost vertical, and the two men were forced to brace against each other's backs, elbows locked together, to walk up the walls slow step by step. Finally they heaved themselves over the lip of the tunnel, and found they were in another, smaller cave.

"Good teamwork," said Zack. "Thanks. I couldn't have made it on my own." He leant back against the ice wall, folding his arms behind his head. "How about we take a breather, OK?"

Reno looked at his PHS. "It's been over an hour. We should keep moving."

"There's no hurry. Essai and Sebastian'll be fine on their own. They can handle just about anything."

"They friends of yours?"

"I've been on a couple of missions with them. But that's all it takes to becomes friends with someone, isn't it? And they've got my hometown boy Knox with them. He's pretty tough, too - I mean, for a Turk," Zack laughed. Reno, seeing nothing to laugh about, did not. Zack grinned and pointed a finger at him. "Oh, come on, Reno, lighten up. You know I'm just pulling your leg. Those three'll have everything under control, so stop worrying. Relax. Take a load off."

Realising that they were going to take a break whether he wanted one or not, Reno sat down on an outcropping of ice and lit a cigarette.

"Hey, Reno – are you hungry? All this work is giving me an appetite. Let's see what I've got." Zack rummaged through the pockets of his baggy trousers and eventually produced some hard SOLDIER tack wrapped in a ziploc bag. "If you suck it slowly, it won't break your teeth. Want some?"

"No. Thanks."

"Suit yourself." Zack broke off a piece and put it in his mouth. Almost immediately he began talking again. "So… how long have you been a Turk, Reno?"

_God_, thought Reno, _please, anything but small talk. _

"Well?" Zack prodded.

"Seven years," Reno admitted.

"Seven years, huh? You must have started young. And it's good? You like it?"

This felt like a strange question to Reno, though he couldn't put his finger on why, precisely. It was a bit like asking him if he enjoyed breathing; if it felt nice to have a skin. So he replied, "I'm good _at_ it."

"That's what I've heard. Seph told me what you did at Junon last year. But -" Zack shifted his weight, leaned forward. "Here's one thing I can't figure out. There seems to be a lot of overlap between Turks and SOLDIER. I mean in duties and stuff. Seems kind of inefficient. So what is it you guys _do_, exactly? What's your job description?"

Reno gave him the stock answer: "We protect company secrets."

"Company secrets?" Zack frowned. "There's a lot of those, aren't there?"

Reno said nothing, but his heavy-lidded eyes never shifted their focus away from the SOLDIER's face.

After a moment or two, Zack laughed. "OK. I get the message. Still. I bet _your_ job is never boring."

"Don't put your shirt on it."

"Yeah? I guess it's the same no matter what job you do. I get so bored sometimes. Being in SOLDIER isn't always what I thought it would be. When I joined up, I thought it'd be non-stop action. But I pretty much missed the war in Wutai. Angeal took me on a couple of clean-up missions, but those were just training, really. The thing I hate most is sitting around in Midgar doing nothing. If it weren't for…. Well, sometimes I feel I could go stir-crazy, waiting. Midgar kind of weighs down on you, don't you feel that? Those clouds and that sick light. I can't stay there for too long. I have to get back out where the sky is blue."

Reno blew a smoke ring. Why was Zack telling him this? Did he honestly think Reno was interested? What was he trying to do? Find some common ground between them? Make _friends_?

"Cissnei says you like to fly helicopters, so I guess you crave the blue too."

No accidental slip, that: Zack had mentioned her deliberately. And so casually, as if they'd been no more than friends; as if he hadn't first won her and taken her, and then dumped her and seen her exiled to a remote and unnamed loneliness.

Zack went on, "She told me you grew up in the slums. So you probably never saw the sky as a kid, did you?"

The thought that they had made him the subject of their pillow talk was almost beyond bearing. Reno couldn't look at Zack's face another moment. He turned his head away.

"I mean, I get a thrill whenever I see it and I grew up taking it for granted, so I can't imagine what it must feel like seeing the sky for the first time. Someone – some people who grow up in the slums find the sky pretty scary. And then to go from that to flying in it! Amazing. Man, I wish I could fly a chopper. It's one thing SOLDIER doesn't do."

"They don't fucking shut up, either, do they?" said Reno, goaded into speaking at last.

The silence that followed went on, and on.

_Fuck it_, thought Reno, _what's with this guy? He knows I don't like him. He must have some idea _why_ I don't like him. And now he's acting like I hurt his feelings or something. Well, he'll just have to be satisfied with being loved by the rest of the whole goddamn friggin' world, because I'm not buying it._

Finally, Zack nodded, a curt, businesslike inclination of the head, and stood up, brushing the snow from his backside. "OK, then," he said. "I guess we better get moving."

On they trudged through the ice caves, Zack in front, Reno behind. Neither spoke now. The only sound was the crunch of their boots on the snow. One cavern led to another, always upwards. As the air grew fresher, colder, drier, their breath made clouds in front of their faces. Each man was lost in his own thoughts.

Reno's thoughts were not pleasant ones. He was struggling against a kaleidoscope of images: imagined scenes of Zack and Cissnei getting creative in the sack, which refused to leave him no matter how hard he pushed them away; the memory of Cissnei's face glowing with happiness as she danced in Zack's arms; that same face blotchy with tears and contorted in fury, turning on him, Reno, to cry, _I've just lost the love of my life…._

And who was he thinking of, the black-haired SOLDIER striding on ahead? It didn't take a genius to guess.

_Hey, Zack - you want to know a company secret?_ _How about this? We watched you screw the primary objective. That's right. You popped her petal. You crushed her dear little flowers. It's all in the files, man. We can read it any time. Dates, times, places. But you don't know she's an endangered species, do you? You don't know how fucking lucky you are that the Boss hasn't broken your neck, messing with stuff you know nothing about – _

These ugly reflections were shattered by the sound of growling, loud and too close behind them. Reno whirled round. Four guard hounds stood in the mouth of the cavern from which he and Zack had just emerged. Blue fur bristling, tails lashing, the four beasts snapped their long fangs together, working up the courage to charge.

"Out of the way!" Zack cried.

"Back off!" Reno warned him. His EMR was already in his hand, and with a flick of the switch he cast a bolt over all four of the creatures.

It wasn't a quick or pretty way to die. The electricity fizzed, and the animals writhed painfully, sparks of fire running through their fur and bursting out of their ears, their mouths, their anuses. Eyes popped; bones shattered; hides shriveled and peeled away from burnt flesh; and then, at last, they vaporized, and nothing was left of them but the stink of burnt hair and a little blackish sludge, pooling in the hole that had been melted into the cave's icy floor.

Zack did not bother to hide his disgust. "_That's_ your weapon of choice?"

Reno laid the rod across his shoulder. "They're just monsters. And there's probably more of them coming, so let's keep moving."

They set off again, Reno in the lead. From behind his back he could hear Zack mutter, "Just what I'd have expected from a Turk…." Which was fine by Reno; more than fine. Better than pretending to be friends, for sure.

They had not been walking ten minutes when two more guard hounds came upon them, from the front this time. "Mine!" cried Zack, pushing Reno aside and dashing forward. He drew Angeal's sword. The animals held their ground, snarling.

"Go on, then," said Reno.

Still Zack hesitated.

One of the guard hounds coiled back on its haunches and sprang, teeth bared, at Zack's throat. Reno just had time to think, _if I let that valuable corporate asset die down here the Chief will kill me! – _before Zack let out a shout that nearly split his eardrums.

In fact it was less of a shout than a roar, a burst of pure noise ululating from Zack's throat. Reno dropped the EMR and covered his ears. The two guard hounds instantly fell onto their sides, tails tucked tightly between their legs, exposing themselves to Zack in abject submission.

"What the hell was that?" Reno demanded. His ears were still ringing.

"My dad's old trick. I'm a farm boy, remember?" Zack knelt down beside the hounds and scratched their freckled bellies. They thumped their tails in thanks. One licked his hand. "Hey, fellas, hey," Zack soothed them. "Good dogs. Go on now. Go home. Good boys. Go home."

Obediently, the two hounds got to their feet and trotted off in the direction they had come.

"Nice job," said Reno. "They can snack on us later, yo."

"There's been enough killing for one day," said Zack. "I'm not going to kill anything unless I have to."

Reno was beginning to feel he'd had about as much as he could take from this SOLDIER. It was on the tip of his tongue to snap out a sarcastic reply, to pick a quarrel, and maybe even a fight – but suddenly, unbidden, a memory of Cissnei flashed into his mind's eye. In the dim light of the train graveyard her face was smeared with blood and dirt, and there were tears gathering in her eyes.

_I hate wasting life for no reason, Reno. I hate it!_

He'd saved a little cat that day. Just because he could.

He'd done it to make her happy.

Such a small life, a cat's life. But he'd felt good about it, too. Good about himself –

"We're nearly there," said Zack. "See the light? Come on, let's hurry."

When they came out into the daylight, snow was softly falling. The world was completely soundless. Looking around, they saw that they were not far along the road from the broken bridge. The convoy had passed this way, leaving the trail of its tires in the snow on the road. The two men turned their eyes northwards, where an ominous column of smoke could be seen rising beyond a line of rocky hills. Without a word, Zack and Reno began to run towards it.

_._

_PHS Transcript, 15__th__ January 2002_

_Veld: Reno? Are you all right? What's happening?_

_Reno: There's been an ambush, sir. The troopers here have all been knocked out. Knox is unconscious. _

_Veld: What? What about SOLDIER? _

_Reno: The second classes aren't here. Looks like they've been abducted. Again._

_Veld: But what about Zack?_

_Reno: He's gone after them, sir._

_static_

_Veld: Follow him, Reno. Whatever happens, they mustn't get their hands on him._

_Reno: Understood. Reno out. _

Veld sat on, deep in thought, the phone lying open in his hand. He would have liked to close his eyes, to lay his head down on the desk and sleep, sleep, sleep as he hadn't slept in days. He was being outmaneuvered, and there seemed to be nothing he could do to stop it.

Through every step of this failed operation, someone had been passing information to AVALANCHE. That someone, it was abundantly clear, was a member of the Board. But who? Heidegger? Scarlett? Unlikely. They'd spent their lives building Shinra. Surely they'd never sell it out to its enemies. Hojo? Some of the evidence pointed in his direction, but what could he possibly stand to gain from destroying Shinra? Lazard? He was almost too patently a suspect, and yet not, for that reason, to be dismissed out of hand….

People were dying because he, Veld, couldn't find the answer. Who would be next? His own boys and girls? Tseng? The Turks' second-in-command would be an obvious target…

There was no point in deferring the inevitable any longer. Rising to his feet, Veld headed for the elevator. The President was waiting to be informed.

* * *

_Author's note: this is episode 7 of Before Crisis and takes place between Chapters 6 and 7 of Crisis Core.  
If any of you nice people reading this (and I know there's lots of you, I've seen my stats) would like to leave a comment, please feel free. Seriously. Please. Just imagine Zack doing that cute thing with his hands together and his head on one side. Or I may have to consider sending Tseng to persuade you! No, but really, concrit would be especially welcome. _


	20. We Can't All Be Heroes

**CHAPTER 20: WE CAN'T ALL BE HEROES  
_In which Reno reflects on the events at Icicle Inn, Mozo makes an unnerving suggestion, and Tseng worries about the future_**

**

* * *

**

"So then what happened?" Skeeter asked Reno.

It was the evening of the following day, that hour when the drinks-after-work crowd crossed paths with the drinks-before-showtime crowd. The Goblins Bar was bursting at the seams, customers spilling out onto the sidewalk with glasses in their hands, but even so the manager had cleared the Turks' favourite table for them. The boys and girls in the blue serge suits liked to sit in the snug at the back of the saloon bar, close to the fireplace, where the dark red carpet, the lacquered wood paneling, and the soft lamplight combined to create an atmosphere of womblike cosiness. By longstanding Turk tradition, the last man in from a mission stood everyone else the first round, and tonight that man was Reno. The helicopter from Icicle Inn had landed on the rooftop pad less than two hours ago. Zack had immediately gone to report to Lazard. Stretcher-bearers had carried Knox to the infirmary on the 34th floor, where the doctors had examined his fractured skull and assured an anxious Tseng that he would make a full recovery, though his left cheek would be badly scarred. Meanwhile the Chief had debriefed Reno and sent him to write his report. That job done, Reno's colleagues had borne him away to the Goblins, to celebrate his safe return from out of the frozen jaws of AVALANCHE.

"After the Chief told you to follow Zack Fair," Cavour prompted. "What happened then?"

Pared of embellishments and interruptions, the tale Reno told them went as follows: Taking the short cut over the hills, he'd arrived at the AVALANCHE base to find it deserted, except for a few Grand Horns ambling aimlessly along the corridors. Avoiding them, he'd made his way to the capsule room – the room where, the day before, he and Knox had freed Essai and Sebastian from the giant test-tubes in which they'd been trapped. Reno didn't expect to find them in the capsule room a second time. In fact, he'd assumed they were dead. But when he walked in, there they were, floating in two transparent cylinders of black slime. Had they been abandoned in haste when AVALANCHE fled? Or were the tanks booby-trapped as a parting gift? Reno wasn't taking any chances. Withdrawing to the cover of the doorway, he used his gun to shoot the locks on the capsules. The lids flew open, the slime gushed out, and the two SOLDIERS flopped onto the floor like fish tipped out of a fish tank. Reno knelt down beside them to see if they were still breathing. He was bending over, pressing an ear to one of their hearts, when they attacked him.

They didn't recognize him. They didn't know their own names. Their faces had changed, too; had become blandly identical. Which one had been Essai, and which one Sebastian, Reno couldn't tell. They had lost the ability to speak. All that remained of the men they had once been were the second class uniforms they wore.

After a hard struggle, Reno managed to break free and ran for the doorway, intending to shoot them from a safe distance. At that moment Zack burst in. _Stay back_, he called to Reno, _I don't want anyone to get hurt._

Essai and Sebastian – or, to be accurate, the things now living inside Essai and Sebastian's skins – made a lunge for Zack. _They're monsters, _Reno warned him. _They'll kill you. _

_ No, they aren't! They won't!_ Zack shouted back.

He began to call their names over and over, gently, as if he were trying to wake up a child. _ Sebastian. Essai. My friends. It's me, Zack. It's OK, Essai. I'm here now, Sebastian. It's OK._

And they woke up, and knew him, and thanked him, and lay down and died.

"We lost them?" exclaimed Rosalind. "Both of them?"

"But they were SOLDIERs!" said Skeeter disbelievingly. It had long been an article of faith in Shinra that the only thing capable of killing a SOLDIER was another SOLDIER.

Mozo put his hand over his eyes.

All of the Turks sitting around the table had known Essai and Sebastian. Some of them had been on missions with the two dead men. They'd eaten meals together round campfires, crawled through Midgar's sewers, hiked across rope-bridges in the far south-west; they'd ridden chocobos with them through the Grasslands, or won money from them at cards, or traded good-natured boasts and insults … And all that time, while Essai and Sebastian were getting on with the business of living, this terrible end had been lying in wait for them, coming closer day by day…

"They're better off dead," said Reno, sounding as serious as anyone had ever heard him be. "Whatever process it is they got going on in those tubes, I don't think it can be reversed. Zack tried, and it killed them. They were dead the moment AVALANCHE got their hands on them."

"That's something worth bearing in mind," said Mozo, "For all of us."

Each of the Turks sat in silence for a moment, considering Mozo's words.

It would have been impossible to do their job for any length of time and remain ignorant of what was meant by a fate worse than death. Tseng had instructed them in how to avoid such a fate; he had shown them where to put the gun against their own heads, the correct spot and angle to ensure that the shot was clean, painless, and final. But which of them had ever dreamt that such desperate measures might one day be required? To get killed in the line of duty – that was one thing. Each of them was prepared for that. To be pushed into the kind of corner where your best option was to put a bullet through your own brain, that was…. Well, it was what Turks did to the enemies of Shinra. Now, with Essai and Sebastian, AVALANCHE had turned the tables. And Mozo seemed to be suggesting that the same fate could befall any of them, if they weren't careful.

It was the first time anyone had even hinted at the possibility that AVALANCHE might be too strong for Shinra.

"But why are they doing this? What do they want? That's what we still don't know," said Rosalind.

"Death to the Shinra," Reno mocked.

Rosalind frowned at him. "Genesis I understood, sort of. The Wuteng, I can see why they hate us. But what have we ever done to these people in AVALANCHE?"

Aviva slammed her fist on the table, startling everyone. "They're just evil! They like to hurt people! They want to take this company down and destroy all the progress we've made, and they don't care how many innocent people they kill! We can't let them win! Come on, guys, cut it out with the long faces. You're looking like a bunch of losers."

"She's right," Rude added, his gaze moving slowly around the table.

Those two words were the first he had spoken all evening. Aviva shot him a look of warm gratitude.

_Hmm_, thought Reno.

These last few weeks, since the catastrophe of Chelsey, Rude had been talking less and less, to the point where Reno had begun to fear he might stop speaking altogether. It made a kind of sense, when you thought about it. What was there to say, after all?

The spying bitch had said she loved him, and then she'd turned around and walked out of his life. What must that feel like, to be loved by somebody who'd set out to use you? To hold onto her only as long as she didn't love you, and then have her run out on you when she did? Reno couldn't imagine: he'd never stuck around with anyone long enough to be loved _or_ dumped. Was it good or bad to know that she was still walking around in the world somewhere, breathing the same air as you, feeling the same sun on her face? Reno liked to think of Cissnei that way sometimes, when he was lying up on the roof watching the night clouds boil and wondering if, wherever she was, she too was gazing up into the sky and thinking…

But who would she be thinking of? Who was she lonely for?

"… It's just not possible," Cavour was protesting. "Shinra's megalithic. How big can AVALANCHE be?"

"They don't need to be big if they have the technology, and from the sounds of it, they do," said Mozo.

"But where do they get their funding?" Cavour persisted. "Wutai, maybe?"

"Wutai haven't got the money to pay for their own reconstruction," put in Rosalind.

"The reactor building program is supposed to stimulate the Wuteng economy," Mozo pointed out. "But it's possible the money's being siphoned off. A little creative accounting works wonders. We should be looking into that. In the meantime, they just hold out their hands for our aid. Nice little earner, eh? Get paid for losing a war. Hey, Reno, are you asleep? I'm getting another round in. Feed the kitty."

"Same again," said Reno. He handed the money to Mozo, pushed his chair back and stood up. "I need to take a leak. "

.

Up on the 48th floor, Tseng paced restlessly, unable to settle himself to any useful occupation. He and the Commander had been reading through Reno's report, such as it was, when a phone call had come through summoning Veld to the penthouse. "Looks like this is it," said Veld, getting to his feet. Tseng had opened his mouth to ask to come with him, but Veld forestalled the question. "No. You'd better wait here."

It seemed to Tseng that he was destined, in every crisis of his life, to be alone. Ten years ago he had been pacing this same empty office in just this way, watching the hands of the clock as they moved slowly from second to second, each tick breaking a silence that felt infinite, as he waited for Veld to return from the brink of disaster.

How could the President hold Veld to blame for what had happened up North? Heidegger and Scarlet were equally responsible, if not more so; they'd poured their poison in the Old Man's ear, turning him against the Commander. What had they done to help solve the problem? Nothing – which meant, of course, that they'd avoided the taint of failure.

Yet the mission to the Northern Continent hadn't been a complete disaster. AVALANCHE had managed to pull out safely, true, but they'd lost their base and all their equipment, which was no small setback. Their activities would be curtailed for some time to come, time the Turks could use to track down their new hiding place. Reno had also managed to bring back a sample of the slime used to create the black Ravens. Hojo's scientists had already run an initial analysis, and the results had confirmed that the substance was mostly unrefined mako, contaminated by some as yet unidentified agent. This was more or less what Tseng had guessed. Essai and Sebastian had been hollowed out, pithed, their selves almost erased. Immersion in pure mako alone could not do this, not in such a short time. It enhanced a man's strength and speed and senses, but it did not strip him of his humanity, his soul.

Even in the ugliest throes of his transformation, Angeal had remained true to himself, and had claimed the right to freedom of choice, though the only choice left to him, by then, was the manner of his death.

Even when he was a monster, Angeal had still been a man.

One could argue the distinctions further, Tseng reflected. One could say that Hollander, like most scientists, hadn't really known what he was doing. Working from a base of imperfectly understood information and wrong assumptions, his experiments had been, at worst, committed out of curiosity, the desire to see what would happen if Cell X were injected here and Cell Y implanted there. At best, one could even claim that his actions had been motivated by a perverted desire to advance the human cause.

But would someone like Zack be able to grasp these distinctions? To him, the evil that befell Essai and Sebastian must have seemed like Angeal's fate all over again. It hadn't escaped Tseng's notice that this time around Zack had refused to fight. He'd even spared the lives of the guard hounds. Some men did reach a saturation point, when they were no longer able to bear the weight of another death on their conscience. Tseng hoped, for Zack's sake, that he would not turn out to be one of these. Such men had no future in SOLDIER.

Life, individual life, was not important. No Turk would have done what Zack did. Turks did not indulge their feelings at the expense of the mission. Hadn't he, Tseng, once abandoned his own Commander to what he'd thought was certain death, in order to fulfill his duty? Every time he looked into Veld's face and saw the scars left by that day's action - the scars Veld wore with such pride - Tseng was reminded that he had found the strength to obey, against every instinct of his heart's prompting. He had been well trained, indeed.

Yet Veld himself had broken the commandments that day -

Tseng's phone rang. "Sir?" he answered.

"It's as we feared," said Veld. "Call the others and get them back up here. I don't want them to hear it from anyone but me."

.

_The men's toilets in the Goblins Bar seems as good a place as any to take a look in the mirror. So go on, Reno, why don't you?_

_ Be honest. There've been times, this last year, when you thought you were the man. Weren't there? Those heroics in Junon. Saving the little kitty. Staring death in the face on the runaway elevator and blowing it off with a laugh. _

_ Look at your badass self. Look, can't you?_

_ That story you told them back there. Who was the hero? Not you, Reno, no matter how you slice it. You just did your job._

_ Zack's the man. _

_ You still don't like him. So whose problem is that?_

_ Hey, but we are what we are, yo. Can't do anything about it – got to play the hand we're dealt, and all. You're good at what you do, damn good. Sephiroth himself said it. Even the Boss has to admit it. So why should you care that Zack's the hero? Aren't you the one who's supposed to take nothing seriously?_

_ That face in the mirror's coming a little too sharply into focus. Time for another drink now, don't you think, Reno? _

Rude was waiting for him outside the bathroom door. His tawny face looked more solemn than usual. "What's up?" asked Reno, taking the cigarette from behind his ear and lighting it.

"Tseng called. He wants us back at the office. The others have gone ahead."

"What's happened?"

"He wouldn't say."

"But it's bad, you think?"

Rude nodded.

"Shit." Reno took a long, deep drag, exhaled slowly, then threw the cigarette to the ground and crushed it under his heel. "Like we need any more crap right now. All right, partner. Let's go."


	21. Heidegger Takes Charge

**CHAPTER 21: HEIDEGGER TAKES CHARGE  
**_I**n which the Turks must come to terms with a change of direction, and Aviva is rescued from certain death by a tall, handsome stranger**_

_**

* * *

**_

Veld had been relieved of his command.

The Turks were stunned. They'd been expecting some kind of disciplinary action over their failure to find and silence the leak, but this was crazy; this was too extreme. To cut off their collective head, and hang it, metaphorically speaking, like a trophy from a boardroom battle! Was the Old Man going senile?

Veld broke the news and then left quickly, advising them (since it was no longer his right to give orders) that they should all get some rest: they were expected back at work tomorrow morning, same as usual. But nobody could think of sleeping. By common consent they retreated to the lounge area to discuss their situation and see if they could find some ray of hope. Reno dragged the beer crate in from the kitchen; Rosalind put the coffee on.

"What's going to happen to Commander Veld now?" asked Aviva. "I mean – he _lives _here. Will he have to leave, sir?"

She put the question to Tseng, who was standing by the window, arms folded, his weight thrown onto his back leg, looking as perfectly in control as he always did. The Turks were glad of his presence. Having him with them was a reassurance that their world had not been turned completely upside-down.

"He hasn't been sacked," Tseng explained. "He's still on the Board. The President's keeping him on in an advisory capacity. He'll stay in his office. But he no longer has clearance to be on this floor or involve himself in our work in any way."

"Well, that sucks," said Skeeter. "Aren't we even allowed to _see_ him?"

Rosalind sighed. "How will we manage without him?"

"Are you taking command of us now, sir?" Cavour asked Tseng.

"For the interim," he replied, "Until one of the other Directors is given responsibility for this department."

"Who?" asked Aviva.

"Lazard would make sense," said Rosalind.

Tseng shook his head. "I doubt it will be Lazard."

"But who then? God – not Scarlett – "

"Talk about a choice of evils," said Reno.

"We don't know, so it's pointless to speculate," said Tseng firmly. "You are working yourselves up for nothing. In any case, whoever it is, we will do what it takes to forge a successful working relationship with him, or her. It's what Commander Veld would expect. We're still his Turks," Tseng's voice softened a little, "And whatever we do reflects on him. Let's give him reasons to be proud of us."

"Or he'll have our skins when he comes back," said Mozo, making them all laugh. Aviva said wistfully, "Oh, do you think he will come back, really?"

Mozo nodded. "I'll bet you anything. The Board want to give him a good slap on the wrist. But nobody can run this department like he can, and the Old Man knows it. He'll be back inside of a week, you mark my words."

The Turks were not allowed to grasp this shiny wire of hope for long. Next morning, as they sat listless and bleary-eyed at their desks, the door hissed open and Director Heidegger came in, accompanied by four of his blue-uniformed troopers and followed by an expressionless Tseng. The Director was looking extremely pleased with himself; his little eyes glinted like the black bead eyes of a stuffed toy, and his beard seemed bristlier than ever. At the sight of him, every Turk heart sank.

Little Aviva in particular shrank back, ducking her head. Rude quietly rolled his own chair forward to conceal her from view. But the blizzara he'd slipped into Heidegger's whiskey must have done the trick, for though the Director paused before speaking to take a good took round the room, he gave no sign that he recognised her.

"Attention, Turks," Heidegger boomed. "You've been nothing but a pain in the arse since the day Veld hired you, but starting today that's all going to change. I'm in charge now, and I'll see to it that you make yourselves useful. Tell me, what's my title?"

"Don't you know it, sir?" asked Reno, his face innocently bland.

From across the room Tseng shot him a warning look.

"Stupid Turk! That was a rhetorical question. Director of Public Safety Maintenance, that's who I am. _Public Safety_. Shinra's top priority. Don't any of you forget it. And don't make the mistake of thinking I'm a soft touch like your old boss –"

From across the room came a strangled cough.

"Tseng!" barked Heidegger.

"Just clearing my throat, sir."

"Three of you are missing. Where are they?"

"Knox is in the infirmary. He was injured in the recent action against AVALANCHE. Mink's at the branch office in Junon, working on Turk recruitment. Skeeter's on patrol in Sector 8."

"Recall him. Sector 8 is no longer Turks' jurisdiction. My army will be keeping the peace in _all_ of Midgar from now on. And get the woman back here. I'm not wasting money recruiting more Turks. There's too many of you as it is." Heidegger paused. "Knox can stay where he is, for now. As for the rest of you, I'll let you know your orders as soon as I can think of some use for you good-for-nothing lot. That's all."

Heidegger about-faced and strutted from the room, chuckling to himself. The four grunts followed. The door slid shut.

"Prat," said Mozo.

Aviva had covered her mouth with her hands, shaking her head and muttering, "Oh, god, oh, god, oh…."

"Was that for real?" asked Rosalind, "Or did I just dream it?"

Rude reached over and laid a gentle hand on Aviva's shoulder. "It's OK," he said.

Leaning forward in his chair, Reno stared across at Tseng, who was studying the pattern of the floor tiles in a calmly thoughtful kind of way. Reno searched that impassive Wuteng face for some hint of what was going on inside, but Tseng, as ever, was unreadable. You might have thought he didn't give a damn, yet Reno knew that wasn't true. Frustrated, he exclaimed, "Boss, are you just going to stand there and take that shit?"

Tseng was a long time answering; so long, in fact, that Reno was beginning to think he hadn't heard the question, and was about to repeat it, when Tseng lifted his head and said in his coldest voice, "You shouldn't have provoked him. It was inappropriate and foolish. Fortunately for you, our new Director is somewhat… obtuse. Don't do it again."

"But the man's an insult – "

"He's our Director. We will show him all due respect."

"I'm not taking orders from Heidegger. He fucking hates us. He wants to cut us out of all the important stuff. You heard him. He's going to have us stuffing envelopes and rescuing old ladies' cats from now till the day we die, and he'll be rubbing our noses in it the whole time. What crap kind of way is that to reward our loyalty?"

"Calm down," said Rude.

"No, I fucking won't. People have died in this department protecting Shinra. Nats died. Remember? Knox nearly died two days ago. We all have scars. We get the job done and we don't expect thanks, but I'll tell you what I do expect – I expect the Old Man to have a bit more respect for what we do for him than to replace our Chief with a twat like Heidegger_ – _"

"Reno," said Tseng, "Shut up."

At the sound of those words, anger took hold of Reno completely. He had been through so much in the last few days, and now to be silenced by Tseng when all he'd done was voice aloud what they were all thinking – it was the last straw.

He stood up. "That's it," he said. Tearing the goggles from his head, he threw them onto the desk. "The rest of you can lie down and take this crap if you want. But I quit."

He was already heading for the door; he couldn't see their faces. He could hear Rosalind, though: she was tittering in a slightly panicked way. Why was she laughing? Did she think he was joking?

"You can't quit," said Tseng calmly.

"Oh yeah? Watch me."

The force of his anger carried Reno out the door and halfway to the elevators before cooler reason began to reassert itself. Was he actually going to go through with this? Ride down that elevator, go through those front doors, walk down those steps, turn his back on all of this forever?

His hasty footsteps slowed their pace. Where was he planning to go, exactly? Where could he go? What would he do? Beyond these walls, without this suit, who would he be? Who, in the world outside Shinra, gave a shit about him? Without Rude, without Mozo and Knox, without Roz and Veev - without Tseng, damn him, and the Commander, he was nobody, and he had nobody. This job was his life. Was he really going to throw it all away because of _Heidegger?_

Reno stood still for a moment, thinking.

If he left, how would Cissnei know where to find him?

Anyway, he didn't have much money in his pockets, only twenty or thirty gil, and half a pack of cigarettes. That wouldn't get him very far. Maybe the best thing would be to go up to the 64th floor and run on the treadmill for a while, until he'd calmed down enough to think clearly –

"Having second thoughts about your grand gesture?" said Tseng from close behind.

Reno turned round. Tseng was holding his goggles out to him. But Reno wasn't ready to roll over just yet. He made no move to take them.

"Maybe," he said. "And maybe not."

The ghost of a smile touched Tseng's lips. "Don't let me stop you."

"Don't give me that. You wouldn't just let me leave. Would you?"

"How far do you think you'd get? Our enemies are everywhere and you are - conspicuous. Midgar's full of people with a grudge against Shinra who would love to take a pot-shot at an ex-Turk. Without that suit to protect you, you'd be dead by the end of the week."

"Yeah – well, maybe I'll do a Charlie. Switch sides, join AVALANCHE and kick Heidegger's butt."

"A tempting prospect," Tseng agreed, which was quite an admission, coming from him. "And I'm sure they'll be happy to prepare a test tube just for you."

"All right, all right," sighed Reno. "I get the point."

"I don't think you do. My point is not simply that you need us. We need you. _I_ need you, now more than ever. I understand why you're angry, and I don't like the situation either, but we have no choice. We've been deliberately made to look incompetent."

Reno's ears pricked up. "Deliberately? You mean, set up?"

"The information leak. Don't you see? It's aimed at us. Someone at the top wants us out of the way, or at least rendered ineffective."

"You think it's Heidegger?"

"We still don't know. Whoever it is, though, they have us where they want us now, and if you walked out on us you'd be playing into their hands. Our only hope is to stick together. The Commander's taken the blame for our failure on himself in order to keep the department intact. He's put his faith in our ability to cope without him. I intend to make sure that we all get through this together, intact, so that when the Commander comes back – and he _will_ come back – he has a team to return to."

"Well now," said Reno, "That's a chocobo of a whole different colour. There was I thinking the Old Man was treating us like crap 'coz he despises us, and now you're telling me the whole thing's a conspiracy by our enemies to destroy us. You know what, Boss? If you'd shared that with me in the first place, you could have saved me from making an ass of myself back there."

"You'd only have found some other way. Let's hope you've got it out of your system now. Could you take these things?" Tseng held up the goggles. "You look strange without them."

Reno snapped the goggles into place. The familiar pressure of their elastic strap felt good, felt right, around his head – like he was himself again.

"The Chief has a plan, right?" he said to Tseng. "To get us out of this mess?"

"He may."

Reno grinned. "So he doesn't tell you everything?"

"I certainly don't tell _you_ everything," Tseng shot back. "Now get back to work, Reno. You've wasted enough time this morning.

.

Reno's return to the office was welcomed by a chorus of delight.

"Reno!" cried Skeeter. "Thank God!"

"You came back!" Aviva jumped out of her chair.

"You sure had us going there for a minute," Mozo grinned.

"Piss artist," laughed Rosalind. "When you threw those goggles down, I thought you really meant it."

Reno looked across at Rude, who was saying nothing. He didn't need to voice his thoughts aloud; Reno could see in his face that they were thinking the same thing: _It's not just because we have nowhere else to go. It's because there's nowhere else we'd rather be. _

Rude had never doubted for an instant that his partner would be back.

"Aw, give me a break, you chumps," laughed Reno, rolling his greeny-blue eyes at them. "I was just winding Tseng up."

.

Later that afternoon Reno found another postcard in his pigeonhole. This one had a picture of Sephiroth posing in front of the historic Nibelheim reactor. She must have bought a set of the things before she'd left Midgar. As with the previous card, there was nothing to indicate where it had been posted. Presumably it had come through the internal mail.

On the back she'd written: _I often wonder if Tseng is getting anywhere with the Legend. Without Charlie and Nats the family feels broken. I've never got to know the rookies. It's like you've all moved on without me. Am I the black sheep now? Please don't forget me. _

Meanwhile, in Tseng's office, Rufus was saying, "I'm sorry about Veld. Really, I am."

Tseng was unmoved. "You were at the meeting yesterday, he told me."

"I was, but – "

"He said you were the one egging the President on to dismiss him."

Tseng was sitting behind his open laptop, having been interrupted in the middle of reading his emails. Dark Nation lay against the closed door, purring. Rufus had been looking out the window, but when Tseng made the accusation, he turned round to defend himself.

"Do you think I wanted to say those things?" he exclaimed. "I have to follow the script I'm given, the same as everyone else. Whenever my father has to make an unpopular decision, he likes to make it look as if someone else has talked him into it. That way he always has a fall guy to blame. You know what a devious bastard he is."

_Like father, like son_, thought Tseng. Although it was perfectly possible that what Rufus was saying was true.

Rufus went on, "The one good thing about having Heidegger appointed to replace Veld is that he's guaranteed to make a mess of it. He's an out-and-out military man; he doesn't understand the first thing about running an organization like the Turks. It won't be long before he shoots himself in the foot, and then my father will see he's made a mistake and reinstate Veld. It would have been worse if he'd assigned someone who might actually make a half-decent job of directing this department. Someone like Scarlet, for instance. Or – "

A sudden thought, the suggestion of a probability, crossed Tseng's mind. "Did you think it would be you?" he asked.

_Bull's-eye._ Rufus stammered, faltered, and fell silent. A dark blush spread across his face, right to the roots of his hair. Tseng was surprised to see it. He hadn't thought it possible ever to put this boy out of countenance.

He said, "If you grow up to be half the man Commander Veld is, you might just be fit for the post, some day. Don't try to run before you can walk."

"Actually," said Rufus, cheeks still burning, "I was expecting my father to appoint _you_."

"I would not presume to step into the Commander's shoes. Now, as you can see, I'm very busy – "

"Can't I stay here? If you're using your laptop I could work on your other computer."

"Work?" Tseng raised an eyebrow.

"I've written a new hack program. I want to see if I can break into the First Midgar bank site. I know you've already got a program that does that, but I want to try to do it myself. I promise not to disturb you."

Something about the boy made it hard to say no. Maybe it was because Rufus was so impatient to grow up and _do_ something; Tseng could sympathize with that. By the time he was Rufus' age, he'd already been working as a Turk for three years. Or maybe it was simply because Rufus' attempts to impress him flattered his ego, reminding him of his own younger self, hungry for Veld's approval.

In any case, wasn't it better that Rufus remain here under Tseng's watchful eye, than be off making trouble somewhere else?

"All right," said Tseng. "If you work quietly."

Rufus settled himself at the console; Tseng returned to his emails and tried to concentrate. He did not really like having other people in his space when he was working, and the sound of Rufus's fingernails clicking as they flew over the keys was distracting him. The boy typed very fast. He was sitting straight up in his chair, not slouching as most people did; his elbows were tucked in neatly and his head was slightly inclined, his fair hair falling over his forehead. In his pristine white suit, with his polished shoes and his pearl cufflinks, he was the very epitome of gilded youth.

Looking at him made Tseng feel old. When had the soft-cheeked child in the sailor suit, peering in fascination down the barrel of Tseng's gun, become this lanky, elegant adolescent? Yet there were some things about Rufus that never changed. His determination to have his own way - and his beauty; yes, even Aerith, as a child, had found Rufus' beauty irresistible. Where did those good looks come from? Lazard's long face was intelligent rather than handsome, and as for the Old Man – surely he had never been much to look at, even before age and the corruption of power had robbed him of whatever charms he'd once possessed. Tseng had not known Rufus' mother, who had died when her son was born, but according to Veld she had been lovely, so presumably it was from her that he'd inherited that silky hair and petal skin, those refined features, those cobalt blue eyes.

_Do I have a weakness for beautiful things?_ Tseng wondered. _Is that why I put up with him? There's little enough in the way of beauty to be found round here, god knows…_

_

* * *

_

On the fifteenth day of his reign as Head of the Department of Administrative Research, Director Heidegger received a warning from the Military Academy's intelligence unit of suspicious activity in the Junon area. He immediately put every available Turk into one helicopter (disregarding Veld's ironclad rule of no more than three Turks to a chopper, lest half the department be lost in a single accident) and shipped them down to Junon with vague orders to split up, patrol the city, and report any concerns to him immediately. This, as Reno was not slow to point out, was the kind of work any sharp-eyed child of ten could do.

Tseng did not seriously expect trouble, and he doubted whether Heidegger did, either. These rumours were merely an excuse to get the Turks out of Midgar. Barely a fortnight had passed since the destruction of AVALANCHE'S northern base. They could not possibly have regrouped in such a short space of time.

So he thought. But he could not have been more wrong.

AVALANCHE launched their attack with precision timing, advancing into Junon from every side in numbers that defied all probability. Tseng's phone was jammed with incoming calls: Aviva at the harbour, Reno in lower Junon, Rude in upper Junon, Mozo by the submarine docks, Cavour at the airport, all of them simultaneously asking for help that he could not provide. Within minutes the situation had turned desperate.

Swallowing his pride, Tseng dialed Heidegger's number.

Their new Director had promised he would send in his army at the first sign of trouble. That would have been bad enough – the last thing poor beleaguered Junon needed was another pitched battle running through its streets. But when Tseng called for help, Heidegger's response was to do nothing. His troops sat tight in their fortified barracks, watching through their windows while Junon was overrun – waiting, on Heidegger's orders, for every last Turk to be exterminated. That must be the truth of the matter, Tseng now realized. No other explanation made sense.

It was all coming clear to him. Heidegger was the one who had set them up. He was the leak, the mole, the enemy. Reno had had the right idea: get out while the going was good. But he, Tseng, had talked him out of it. What a fool he'd been! Why had he summoned Skeeter back from Sector 8 on that morning when Heidegger took charge? Why hadn't he told the boy to find somewhere to hide? And Mink – he could have warned her. He could have said, _run, run anywhere, but don't come back to Midgar. _ But what had he done? He'd obeyed their new Director, and ordered her home. Heidegger's accomplice, that's who he'd been.

He had been given leadership, and he had led his team astray.

In desperation he dialed Veld's number.

_"_We're all going to die here!" he shouted down the phone. "Help us!"

He hadn't heard from Rude or Rosalind for over twenty minutes, and believed they were both already dead.

"What do you think I can do?" demanded Veld. "Don't do this to me." Before Tseng could speak again, he hung up.

Tseng tried calling the others, but they didn't answer. If they were still alive, their hands were full. He was on his own. Staying alive was the priority now; Tseng wanted desperately, passionately, by any means, to live, so that he could get back to Midgar and kill Heidegger with his own hands.

Coming upon a lone AVALANCHE operative who had unwisely ventured up a dark alley, Tseng snapped his neck, put on his uniform, and took his weapons. Then he tacked himself on to the tail end of an enemy unit heading up towards the airport. In this way he managed to pass through three roadblocks, and was coming to the service lift when he felt his phone vibrate. Looking both ways to make sure that nobody was watching, he nipped in through the door of the nearest house, and found himself in somebody's living room. Four terrified pairs of eyes stared at him over the back of a sofa.

"There's no cause for alarm," Tseng told them as he took out his phone. "I'm with Shinra."

"That's reassuring," muttered one of the pairs of eyes.

"Tseng?" said the voice at the other end of the line, the voice he'd longed above all others to hear.

"Commander!"

"That's right. I'm back in charge. President's orders. Now listen closely, here's what I want you to do…"

Nor was this the only white rabbit their magician of a Commander pulled out of his miracle hat that day. Aviva, having thrown her last knife and used all her materia, was running for her life when she rounded a corner of the harbour wall and came face to face with a tall stranger in a dark blue zippered suit who was, without doubt, the coolest person she had ever set eyes on in her entire life, even counting Reno. He had long reddish-blond hair, thick sideburns, and dark sunglasses, and he was standing quite still in the midst of all the chaos, chewing ruminatively on a smouldering cigar. In one hand he held what looked like a chain of small grenades strung along a fuse. Raising the end of the fuse to his cigar, he lit it; then he took the cigar out of his mouth and smiled at her, "Hey, cutie. Are you on my team?"

Breathless, she nodded. "They're right - behind me -"

Three AVALANCHE operatives came pelting round the corner, saw the stranger, and stopped.

"Present for you," he said, tossing the string of grenades in their direction. Then he grabbed Aviva's hand and told her, "Run!"

They didn't quite get far enough. The force of the blast threw Aviva onto her face, skinning her chin, rupturing her spleen, and fracturing her right femur in two places. Gobbets of AVALANCHE flesh showered down on her. "Ah, sweet," said her saviour.

He bent over her and pushed her hair back to look at her face. She heard him say, "Is the old boy snatching them out of the cradle?"

"My leg's broken," Aviva groaned.

A hail of bullets fell around them. "Can't stop now," he told her. He picked her up and threw her over his shoulder; the pain was so intense she screamed. He spat out the cigar, and with his teeth pulled the pin from another grenade, throwing it forward to clear a path and diving for cover behind an empty cargo container. At this point Aviva realised she was about to pass out. But first -

"Who _are_ you?" she gasped.

"Some people call me the Legend," he said. "But you, doll-face, can call me Charlie."

* * *

Whatever it was that Commander Veld said or did to make the President change his mind, the Turks never found out. He didn't tell them, and they, of course, didn't ask. Tseng waited to be told (he did not presume to _expect_) but Veld's silence on the subject was absolute. It was as if he'd never been away.

Charlie was more forthcoming. "He begged me," he told Tseng. "He said if I didn't get over to Junon and save your skins, you'd all die. Never thought I'd hear the old boy grovel like that to anyone. He was practically weeping. Finally I had to say yes just to make him stop. So then he said, 'Go outside', and I went outside, and what did I see? A chopper, coming down to get me. He must have sent it for me at least an hour before he picked up the phone."

They were sitting together in one of Charlie's old Sector 8 haunts, tucked away along a back alley and down a dark flight of stairs. A bar of sorts, with no name, but known as _Augusto's _after the owner, it was in fact the owner's small front room, where his pretty daughter served the drinks. Charlie and Tseng were the only customers. Augusto, who knew the score, had cleared everyone else out and locked the door. They were drinking dry, dry sherry, grown on the southern slopes of the mountains between Costa and Corel. Tseng had wondered how such a tiny bar could make a living, until he saw the price of a single glass of the ruddy nectar.

"The old maestro played me like a violin," Charlie added, eyes crinkling with amusement. "He knew all along I'd say yes."

The room was dim, lit by the sallow glow from a single old-fashioned gas lamp set on the table. Charlie had pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head. The flickering light sunk the two men's eyes into darkness and carved shadows under their cheekbones.

"We owe you our lives," said Tseng. "You turned the tide yesterday. AVALANCHE recognised you, of course."

"It looks like the Legend's not quite the washed-up has-been you thought, doesn't it?" Charlie smiled at Tseng and lit another one of his cigars. Tseng preferred them to Reno's cheap cigarettes; their aroma was rich and sweet. The Legend had always had expensive tastes.

"It's good to see Moe and Roz and Rude again," said Charlie. "And Reno's grown up, eh? What hard eyes he's getting. Your new kids have a lot of promise. I liked that little one. Feisty. How is she? Any word?"

"They had to put two pins in her leg to keep it straight before they could Cure her. You were right not to, Charlie; you'd have lamed her for life."

"Old Charlie knows what he's doing."

"I wish you'd change your mind and stay."

Charlie chuckled. "That's something else I never thought I'd live to hear. I appreciate it, kiddo, but it wouldn't work. Too much water under the bridge. And that office isn't big enough for the both of us. It'll be better for everyone if I stay in Junon and take my orders straight from Veld. Special missions. Lone wolf. That's my style."

"I can't argue with that," said Tseng. "Still, the mere fact that you're back on board will make a big difference. Our enemies have perceived us as weak. That should change now."

"When Veld called me," said Charlie, leaning back in his chair, "He said 'the war's not over'. Is that what this is, Tseng? A war?"

"To the death, I think," Tseng replied.

"Ah. Good." A broad grin creased Charlie's tanned face. "Because that's just the way I like it."


	22. So Many Frivolous Things

**CHAPTER 22: THERE'S SO MANY FRIVOLOUS THINGS IN THIS WORLD  
_An eventful chapter, in which Reno spreads gossip, Aviva bites her tongue, a new Turk joins the team, Veld has a plan, and the office cat meets the company President_**

**_

* * *

_**

_2__nd__ February 2002_

"So this guy Charlie," said Cavour in the office the next morning. "I think I've heard of him. He's _the_ Legend, right?"

"You got it," said Mozo, unscrewing a bottle of white-out. "Used to be a mercenary. Fought for Wutai at the beginning of the war. He left such a trail of carnage their soldiers gave him a nickname: 'The Legendary God of Death'. There's the Five Mighty Gods, you see, and then there's Charlie."

Rosalind giggled.

"There's probably a pagoda to him somewhere," Mozo added. "Where they sacrifice virgins."

Reno, who was sitting at the desk in the corner, tinkering with the internal mechanism of a Red Saucer robot, thought to himself that if there was a hall of fame for arrogant jerks, Charlie would be the prize exhibit. Yeah, sure the guy had saved Aviva's life yesterday – after blowing her up first. And Reno wasn't convinced that the sudden appearance of the Legend had made such a big difference to the outcome of the battle. They'd been holding their own all right till he showed up. Typical Charlie – to waltz in halfway through a mission, do something flashy, and then take all the credit.

"So when did the Legend join the Turks?" Cavour asked Mozo.

"Halfway through the war. The Chief talked him into changing sides."

Cavour tossed his head to throw his thick black fringe out of his eyes. "Where's he been all this time? Why haven't I seen him before?"

"For the last five years he's been under house arrest in Costa," said Rosalind. While she spoke, she scrunched up a piece of paper, lobbed it at the wastepaper basket, and missed.

"House arrest? What for?"

"Disobeying orders. One of the President's chums was kidnapped by a rebel faction. The Chief sent Charlie in to rescue him. But Charlie killed him instead."

Cavour's dark eyes widened in his swarthy face. "What?"

"Well – refused to save him, anyway," Rosalind amended.

"There was some – history between them," said Rude from behind his monitor. "Bad blood."

"And the Chief let him live?"

Reno looked up from his robot. "Don't go getting any ideas, Cavs."

"Reno's right," Mozo added, twisting the white-out cap back on. "The Legend's always been a law unto himself."

"A part-time Turk is what he is," said Reno. "Charlie does what Charlie wants, when _he_ wants to. He must think we're SOLDIER or something."

Mink took no part in this conversation. She was crouched beside the opened photocopier, screw-driver in her right hand, examining its broken innards. The cat, who had been chasing Rosalind's scrunched-up ball of paper, came over to examine the row of nuts and washers Mink had neatly laid out on the blue tiled floor.

"Coffee, anyone?" asked Rosalind, rising from her chair to pick up the ball of paper and place it in the bin.

The cat nudged a washer with its paw. "Stop that," Mink murmured, putting her hand over the cat's face and giving it a gentle push backwards.

They had tried out all sorts of names on the cat, but none had stuck. Sometimes they called it Reno's cat, though the cat had made it clear that Rude was its favourite Turk: given half a chance, it would have spent all day draped around his broad shoulders, kneading the fabric of his jacket and purring contentedly.

Sometimes when the Boss was in earshot they pretended to call it 'Tseng'. Tseng was determined not to let them see that this annoyed him. While he felt that having an animal in the department made them look unprofessional, there seemed to be no way of getting rid of the creature short of shooting it. He might have been able to get away with that when the cat first joined them, but if it went missing now the girls would know whom to blame. Rosalind and Aviva lavished attention upon it, feeding it minced chocobo liver, tuna steaks and cream bought with their own money. Whether having this small soft thing to care for, sublimating their feminine instincts, made their work easier or harder for them, was a question Tseng often pondered, without ever coming to a satisfactory answer.

The fact remained that the little ginger cat had become a fixture of the department. It caught mice on a regular basis (and who would have imagined the Shinra building had so many? They cropped up in the oddest places: one of the Turks' computers, for example. The cat staked out the CPU for a week before it finally caught its prey, and when it did, it first ate the body, without spilling a drop of blood, and then deposited the head at Tseng's door. "What a suck up," said Reno. "At least it knows who's the boss," Tseng retorted.).

Occasionally it caught one of the large rats, flea-infested and yellow-toothed, that got into the building from the sewers and gnawed on the wiring. Once, hearing a loud knocking inside the ventilation shaft, Cavour had unscrewed the grille to have a look, only to find the cat attempting to drag out a nearly-dead hedgehog pie three times its size. It was on this occasion that Aviva, in all seriousness, suggested it might be the reincarnation of some long-lost Turk soul.

"It works for its keep, I'll give it that," Tseng admitted.

The little cat went where it pleased in the Shinra Building, as cats are wont to do, and because it was known as the Turks' cat, nobody got in its way. The girls' one concern was that it might wander up to the 67th floor and be mistaken, or simply taken, for an experimental specimen. However, when its curiosity did eventually lead it into the labs, Hojo merely ordered one of his underlings to take it back where it belonged.

"The Professor's allergic," the scientist explained to Rosalind, handing the cat over. He was dressed in dark corduroy trousers and a white lab coat, and his brown hair was thick and curly.

Rosalind hugged the cat as close as she dared. "Thank you so much. We were afraid you might – "

The young man laughed. "It's just an ordinary domestic cat. The Professor has no interest in such things. But try to keep it off our floor. We don't want cat hair contaminating the equipment."

He smiled at her. _What nice teeth he has_, Rosalind thought. _And nice eyes, too, behind the glasses._

He said, "By the way, I'm Phil. Phil Harper. If you ever lose your cat again, just, um, give me a call. Or if you, um, ever felt like, um, going out for a drink, you could call me about that, too."

.

_The end of February, 2002_

Rude and Reno had a new mission, unlike any they'd undertaken before.

Deep inside the Plate, they were standing with the Chief in a very large, dark room with a high ceiling, almost the size of a warehouse, somewhere in the vicinity of Reactor 4. The air was warm and smelt of stale mako: no life had breathed inside this room for years. Beneath their feet the steel girders throbbed to the beat of the reactor. It had taken them a good two hours to walk here from Reactor 8; the Chief had brought them on a circuitous route involving shafts, walkways, ladders, tunnels, small mountains of rubble, and several encounters with monsters.

"Do you think you could find this place on your own?" Veld asked them, shining his flashlight into the corners.

"Yes, sir," said Rude.

"Good," said Veld, "Because it's off the map. Officially, this area doesn't even exist."

Their orders were to build some sort of holding pen, or bunker: Veld's design indicated two small dormitories, a bathroom, a kitchen, a rest area, and a communications bay. They would have to run plumbing down from the mains, which were much higher up, just under the skin of the plate, and they would have to devise something inconspicuous for the waste pipes. Veld told Reno to splice the wiring as close to the reactor's main artery as possible. Stealth modem cables would also have to be installed.

"You should find pretty much everything you need lying around," said Veld. "The contractors never cleaned up after themselves. I take it you know how to mix cement?"

"Yes, sir," said Rude.

"What?" exclaimed Reno.

"Construction site. Worked there six months when I was fifteen."

"Come on, follow me," said Veld. Once again he led the way through the maze of the inner plate. The boom of Reactor 4 gradually faded behind them, and Reactor 5 grew louder ahead. The room he took them to this time was much smaller, with a bed, a table, chairs, and various pieces of what looked like scientific equipment, including something both Rude and Reno recognised as a cloning tank like the one in Hojo's lab.

"This was Hollander's lair, wasn't it, sir?" asked Reno.

Veld nodded. "As I thought, nothing's been cleared away. Everyone thinks it's someone else's job. We've stripped the data from the computers, of course. I did it myself; you should find it's all operational and clean. Dismantle everything and move it to the room we were in before."

Rude pointed at the cloning tank questioningly.

"That thing?" Veld's tone was contemptuous. "We have no use for it. Destroy it."

"Roger, sir."

"And tell no one. About_ any_ of this."

The two Turks nodded. "Understood."

_._

_March 2002_

As he studied the chart of AVALANCHE activity that was slowly growing and elaborating like a wild vine across the whiteboard in his office, Veld could begin to discern a pattern. One or two big assaults were usually followed by months of quiescence, during which time, he presumed, they built up their supplies, planned their next campaigns, and recruited new members to replace the fallen. That last, thought Veld, probably wasn't difficult. The economy was doing strange things these days. People who had a job, or owned land, or provided services, were prospering, but outside Midgar and Shinra jobs were hard to find, and in many parts of the planet the poor were struggling to survive.

Midgar's own slums undoubtedly provided AVALANCHE with a large percentage of their cannon fodder. The Shinra media and the P.R.-Schools liaison department were working hard to raise public awareness of the dangers of being seduced into terrorist cells – but realistically, when you took a young man with no job and no future and offered him money and a gun and a purpose, what did you expect him to do? Commander Veld knew how that worked; none better. The difference between him and AVALANCHE was that he was determined to keep his people alive.

Every day, when Veld woke up, the first thought that went through his mind was, _where are they_? Mentally he ticked them off, beginning with Tseng, and ending with Cissnei. Only when he was satisfied that he could account for each of the lives in his charge, knew where they were and what they were doing, only then did the weight of anxiety lift from his mind, allowing him to get up, make himself a coffee, and begin another day.

.

_16__th__ April 2002_

Dawn was breaking as Reno slipped from the bed of the brunette reactor technician in whose arms he had spent the night and made his getaway, closing her apartment door quietly on his way out so as not to wake her. He went across town to the Shinra Building, and had a shower in the staff washrooms on the 64th floor before heading down to the office to see if anyone was around. In the materia room he found Aviva humming tunelessly to herself while she took an inventory: she was standing with her back to him, bent over a drawer full of garnet-coloured crystalline spheres, each one meticulously labeled in Rosalind's neat handwriting.

Though he would have preferred a larger audience, Aviva would do nicely for starters. She enjoyed a fresh piece of gossip almost as much as he did. From the unselfconscious way she hummed and moved he could tell she didn't know he was there. It would be fun to give her a little fright. Lounging against the doorpost, he said, "Hey, Veev – "

She jumped like a startled cat, dropping the materia she held in her hand. Reno flung himself forward and caught it before it hit the floor.

"You really scared me!" she gasped.

He could see he had; a pulse was throbbing in the base of her throat. "Didn't mean to," he smirked, reaching around her to put the materia back in its place. Standing this close to her made him conscious of how small a thing she was. Her head barely reached his shoulder. She was a bit like a materia herself, he thought: a little nugget of raw energy.

Reno hadn't seen much of their youngest Turk in the months since her near-death experience at the hands of the Legend in Junon; she'd been in hospital for weeks having her leg straightened, while he'd been working down in the bunker with Rude, or off on missions in pursuit of rumours from which they always returned empty-handed. According to Mozo, Charlie had been up from Junon five or six times just to see Aviva – which proved, Reno supposed, that the Legend had a conscience, of sorts.

He slouched against the wall, hands in pockets, and by scrunching his shoulders forward he brought his eyes down almost to a level with hers. "So listen, Veev - you'll like this. Guess who I saw last night? In a dress. With a man. On a date. Roz! With one of the eggheads from the labs."

"I know." Aviva was still a little breathless. "Dr Harper."

"What? You know about it? You know his name? And you didn't tell me? Some friend you are!"

He wasn't really surprised to hear that Aviva already knew. She and Rosalind were tight, and girls always told each other this stuff. Probably she could fill him in on some of the juicier details, if he could get her to spill the beans.

Aviva's black eyes were earnest in her pale face. "Please don't make fun of them. It's serious."

"What – serious serious?"

"She asked me not to tell anyone. Reno, please – don't tease her about it."

"Shit. That serious, huh?"

"It could be. She thinks he might – " Aviva broke off short.

"What? Might what? You don't mean – " Reno's voice dropped an octave – "Marry her?"

He had meant it as a joke – but Aviva's look of guilty discomfort told him that he'd hit the mark dead centre.

"Don't tell her I told," Aviva squirmed.

"But Veev, this is a disaster! If Roz gets married, who'll do my laundry?"

She stared at him.

_Hey kid_, he thought_, I'm trying to make you laugh here. You could at least crack a smile for me. _

"Reno, please… " She laid her hand on his arm, the lightest of touches. "Promise you won't - well, you know. Don't play any practical jokes or mess them around. Roz has been waiting for someone like Phil for a long time. She's really serious about him."

Reno's eyes danced. "Aw, come on. How serious can it be? I didn't even know she had a boyfriend. How long's she been going out with him?"

"What's that got to do with it? When you know, you know."

"Is that right?" He bent his mouth closer to her ear, grinning. "And how would _you_ know?"

Her little face flushed pink. Quickly she turned away and tried to cover her confusion by busying herself with the materia, sliding the summons drawer shut, picking up her clipboard and moving along to the next case. He remained where he was, leaning against the wall, arms folded, waiting for the inevitable comeback. Aviva wasn't the kind of kid to meekly let him - or anyone - have the last word.

She shut the support materia cupboard with a slam and stood up straight to face him. Her cheeks were burning. _Here we go_, he thought.

"Not everyone is like _you_, Reno," she blazed at him. "Some guys _like_ having one special girl. Some guys _want _to get married and settled down."

"Yeah, but – " He pushed off from the wall and sloped over to her. "Look, don't misunderstand me. Roz is my friend too. I want her to be happy. But married? That's just – unrealistic. And it wouldn't make her happy, no matter what she thinks. People like us don't get married."

"Knox did." Even before she'd finished saying it, Aviva bit her lip; she'd realized it was a stupid thing to say.

"Exactly. That's my point. People like us, Veev, we don't get married, and if we do, we don't stay married, because this job takes everything we've got. Nothing else is permanent. Every other relationship's going to fall short sooner or later, so the sooner you accept that, the happier you'll be, because nothing lasts forever – "

He stopped abruptly, remembering whose words those were.

Aviva took advantage of his silence to unleash a flood of indignation on him. "Is that right? And how would _you_ know, Mister Reno, with an attitude like that? You never give anyone a chance! For all you know the best thing that ever happened to you could be right under your nose and you wouldn't see it because you're too busy running around after all those girls like a – like a kid in a candy store, always going after the ones with the shiniest wrappers. Don't you _ever_ wish you could find some special someone you could spend your life with?" Red-cheeked and out of breath, she faltered and fell silent, looking anywhere but at his face.

_Right now_ _I'd settle for someone who could take my mind off Cissnei for a few hours, _thought Reno wryly. He'd had no luck so far. But he kept trying.

Tseng's voice interrupted them, calling from down the corridor, "Reno, can you come here? I've got a job for you."

"Be right there, Boss. Well, Veev, duty calls. " Before Aviva could duck, he threw a playful punch that caught her lightly under the chin. "See you later, half-pint."

"I have work to do anyway," she replied, clutching the clipboard to her chest.

.

_Extract from Aviva's diary, 16__th__ April 2002_

_Oh my god, I can't believe I actually said that to him! I'm still shaking! My handwriting's all over the place. _

_It would have to be him who saw Roz and Phil together!_

_I don't know what came over me. I was this close to blurting it out. It's like there's this part of me that really wants to tell. Sometimes I feel like I'm going to spontaneously combust from all the feelings I've got trapped inside. In a way it would be such a relief to let it all out._

_But then what? He'd tell the Chief. He'd have to. And I'd get sent away. And I might never see him again. Which would officially make me the biggest idiot who ever opened her fat mouth..._

_._

_May 2002_

At the beginning of May Commander Veld brought a new recruit into the office. The name she went by was Hunter. She was a tall, handsome girl, perhaps eighteen years old, with abundant light brown hair and hazel eyes. She came, Veld told them, from Mideel. That was all he would say.

To Tseng alone did he explain the full story of how he had found her living rough in the woods beyond the ruins of Banora. She had fled like a wild animal at the sight of him, but he had waited patiently, and eventually she had returned. It was his suit that drew her back, she told him. Veld asked her when she had seen a suit like his before. _On the men who came to talk to Mr Rhapsodos_, she said; _the ones that Genesis killed. _She asked Veld if he, too, was hunting Genesis. If so, she said, he was out of luck. The renegade SOLDIER hadn't been back to what was left of his hometown for five or six months, at least.

_He's dead,_ Veld told her.

The girl burst out sobbing when she heard this news, beating her head with her fists.

_What's wrong_? Veld asked.

_I wanted to kill him myself!_ she cried.

Bit by bit he pieced together her story. Her father had been old Mr Rhapsodos' gamekeeper. On the day of the massacre, Hunter had been up in the foothills at the other end of the estate, checking the traplines, and thus she had escaped with her life when everyone else – her parents, her aunts and uncles and cousins, her neighbours and friends, and the two Turks – had died.

_Are you the one who buried them?_ Veld asked her.

_Yes_, she said. _So __he__ couldn't get them._

After covering their remains as best she could, she had searched the village for survivors. No one was left but Mrs Hewley. There were strange creatures everywhere: purple monsters, and things that were not quite men but that looked like Genesis. She had tried to persuade Mrs Hewley to leave, but Mrs Hewley would not go anywhere without her son's sword, and even between the two of them they could not lift it. For several days Hunter had hidden in the Hewley house. Then one afternoon she'd heard the sound of a helicopter approaching and had panicked, afraid that it was Genesis coming back. Abandoning Mrs Hewley, she had fled, running without stopping until she reached the distant woods. From there she had watched the bombs fall and the village burn.

_You know who I work for, don't you?_ said Veld.

The girl nodded. She said she had realized at the time that it was Genesis Shinra were after. The bombs had made no difference. The village was already dead.

For more than two years Hunter had been living alone, foraging, hunting, doing whatever it took to survive. She was skilful with a shotgun and a skinning knife. These qualities, and her obvious intelligence, were the reasons the Commander gave for having hired her. But as the days passed, Tseng saw that the other Turks were finding her difficult to work with. She lacked the humility becoming in a raw recruit. Her manner declared, _I can fend for myself; I don't need you_. She was opinionated, demanding a reason for everything she was told to do, and if she didn't like the reason, she would argue.

Tseng was willing to acknowledge her strengths. He also understood why the Commander was so stubbornly determined to keep her, despite her obvious shortcomings. This insight he kept to himself. What he did express privately to Veld was his concern that the girl might not be enough of a team player to make the grade.

"Give her time," said the Commander. "Keep her on unclassified missions for now and see how she shapes up. If she still isn't fitting in, say, in three months' time, I'll see if I can transfer her out. Maybe to SOLDIER."

"But SOLDIER doesn't take women, sir."

"Well," said Veld absently, "We'll see, then."

.

Towards the end of May, when the work on the bunker was well under way, Reno found another postcard in his pigeonhole. On the front, President Shinra cutting the ribbon at the inauguration of the Junon cannon. On the back, this:

_Dreamt of you last night. We were chasing Movers in the marine caves. I kept losing sight of you, then I'd find you again. I was sorry to wake up. Tell the guys I miss them._

He tucked the card away and went to the kitchen to pour himself a cup of black coffee.

Why was she jerking his chain like this? Was that, in fact, what she was doing? Or was she trying to patch things up? Keep the lines of communication open? Send him some sort of message?

His phone rang. "The President wants you upstairs," said Tseng. "Stat."

"Wants _me?_ Or just a Turk?"

"He asked for you particularly. Don't keep him waiting." Tseng hung up.

This was a new one: Reno had never been summoned by name to the inner sanctum before. When the Old Man wanted a Turk, he called Veld, and Veld sent the best man for the job. Wondering what he could possibly have done to attract the President's personal attention, and how he might best talk his way out of trouble, if trouble was what this proved to be, he rode the elevator to the 69th floor (something he could never do without experiencing a knee-jerk surge of adrenaline), got out, and ran up the stairs to the Presidential office.

Far away on the other side of the room, the stout old man in his crimson velvet suit stood with his back to Reno, gazing out the window. Between them lay an expanse of marble floor geometrically patterned in shades of cream and charcoal, and so highly polished that Reno could see his own reflection in the tiles. Four finely carved columns held up the domed ceiling; five more framed the huge windowpanes, their looking-glass sheen mirroring ghostly duplicates of the room, the President, and the red-haired Turk. Outside the window the liverish glow from the reactors flickered across the underbelly of the clouds.

"Mr President, sir?"

"Reno." The President turned around. He wasn't smiling. "There's something here that I understand belongs to you."

_Weird_. People hinted sometimes that the Old Man might have a screw or two loose. Maybe they were right. "To me, sir?"

The President beckoned for Reno to come round the desk. This was a large semi-circular bulkhead of chrome and neon, raised up on a dais, and as complex as the cockpit of an airship. Curious, but wary, Reno approached.

In the President's chair the little ginger cat lay curled up fast asleep, faintly purring.

"This is your cat, isn't it, Reno?"

"Not exactly, sir," said Reno cautiously; the Old Man did not like to be contradicted. "It's more, you might say, on the payroll. Rodent control officer, yeah."

The President was not amused. "Don't be facetious. Are you telling me my building has a pest problem?"

So many possible answers sprang to Reno's mind in response to this question that he was momentarily at a loss for words.

"Well?" demanded the President. "Speak up, boy."

"No, sir. It's a, you know, precautionary measure."

"I don't like cats," the Old Man stated. "Take it away."

Was that all? Relieved, Reno reached forward to lift the cat from the chair. Before he could touch it, the cat opened one eye, yawned widely to display its mouthful of needle teeth, and stretched, unsheathing those switchblade claws.

Reno said, "Let me go get my gloves and – "

"Pansy! Just get rid of it. Here – " the Old Man made a lunge for the scruff of the cat's neck. Recoiling with a cry, he held his hand up in disbelief. "It bit me!"

A drop of presidential blood fell onto the immaculate marble floor.

"Kill it," said the President.

"But sir – "

"Shoot it! Now!"

"But sir – it's just a cat; it didn't know any better – "

"Why are you arguing with me? Just kill it."

_Think, Reno, think. _"But sir – what about your chair? And it'll make a mess of your desk. Why don't I take it outside and – "

"I don't give a shit about the chair. And you can clean up the mess. What's wrong with you, Turk? I told you to kill that madman Fuhito in Junon, and you wouldn't, and now I'm telling you to kill a cat, and you have the nerve to say No? Who do you think you work for? I'm ordering you: shoot that cat. Now. Or I'll have Veld sort you out once and for all."

_Fucking hell_, thought Reno, _the old guy's batshit. But he's the President. So maybe _I'm _the crazy one. What the hell _is _wrong with me? Why can't I kill it? It's just a cat…. Cissnei's cat -_

At that moment a rat emerged from behind one of the columns.

It was large, it was grey, and it was ugly. Its long naked tail was as muscular as a snake. Its jagged incisors were the colour of old bones. Its small red eyes glistened like two fresh drops of blood.

The President's cheeks turned pale. "Reno – do something – "

This time Reno did not hesitate. He drew his gun, but before he could take aim and fire a ginger streak came flying through the air, ears back, claws out, teeth bared. The cat landed on the rat's back and bit deeply into its neck. The rat squeaked furiously, bucking and twisting, and for a few seconds the two animals became one single struggling ball of grey and orange fur rolling back and forth between the pillars. Bright smears of blood appeared on the shining floor. Then the cat broke free and came in for the kill, taking hold of the rat by its head and tossing it into the air with a loud neck-breaking snap. The rat thudded to the floor, twitched, and was still. The cat sat down and began to clean its whiskers. Reno and the President stared.

"Bugger me," said the President, impressed in spite of himself. "Now that's what I call a professional job. Reno, you could learn a thing or two from that cat. All right, go on, take it and get out of here. Don't let me see it up here again. And take that – carcass – with you."

Reno did not wait to be told twice. With the cat tucked against his shoulder, and the dead rat held at arm's length, he sprinted down the stairs towards the elevator, pressed the call button, and jiggled impatiently from foot to foot. The tips of the little cat's claws prickled lightly on the skin of his neck.

"Don't even think about it, partner," he warned. "You fucking lucky little furry bastard, how many of the original nine you suppose you got left after this?"

"Reno," said a voice behind him.

Reno's heart sank. Turning round, he saw Rufus step forward from the shadows between two pillars, Dark Nation following at his heel.

_I am so not in the fucking mood for him right now_, thought Reno.

Resting one hand on his cuahl's head, Rufus said, "That was quite a risk you took just then. My old man expects his employees to do what they're told. Why wouldn't you kill it?"

_God knows. Because I'm stupid, OK? It's just a cat. Cissnei's cat. And it's not like I think that as long as it stays here she's bound to come back, or anything, because that would just be superstitious – _

He shrugged. "The girls are pretty fond of this little kitty. It'd be more than my life's worth to let anything happen to it."

The elevator pinged; the doors slid open. Reno stood aside to let the President's son enter; Dark Nation followed, and Reno brought up the rear. "Mezzanine," said Rufus. Reno pressed the button for him, asking, "You're leaving the building? Who's going with you?" because if Rufus went out without a bodyguard and the Chief ever found out Reno had let it happen, he'd be deader than this rat's arse he was holding.

"That new girl," said Rufus. "Hunter."

Dark Nation sank down on its haunches. Its head was at a level with Rufus' chest. It kept its slitted eyes fixed on the cat, though whether its expression was more hungry, or friendly, Reno couldn't decide.

"They say a cat may look at a king," said Rufus, reaching out to scratch the ginger cat behind its ear. Reno felt the rumble of its purr ignite.

Rufus smiled. "You know," he said, "It's possible I was wrong about you, Reno. You may have some redeeming qualities after all."

"That's big of you, V.P.," Reno replied, aiming for sincerity. "Thanks."

"I'd like you to teach me how to fly a helicopter. I'll speak to Veld and arrange a time for the lessons. Oh, and you can give me that rat."

Lip curled, Reno held up the stiffening corpse. "What d'you want this for? I was going to throw it in the incinerator – "

"Dark Nation likes them." Rufus took the rat by the tail.

_Kid's weirder than ever, _thought Reno. Still, with a father like old Shinra…. If that was what families did to you, then Reno thanked his lucky stars he'd shucked his early on.

The 'M' on the control panel lit up. The lift stopped; the doors parted. Hunter was standing there, an impatient scowl on her face. Reno held the doors open with one hand while Rufus and Dark Nation stepped out. Rufus, his face expressionless, held out the rat to Hunter. She looked at it in dismay, then glanced at Reno.

The lift doors were closing. He gave her a mocking grin. "Better take the V.P.'s rat, rookie." Her face darkened thunderously – but the doors were shut, and she was gone, and Rufus was gone, thank god. Reno had the lift to himself. Putting the cat down, he pressed 48. Then he took Cissnei's postcard out of his pocket and resumed what he had been doing before he was so strangely interrupted.

.

_31st May, 2002. Departmental Briefing_

Tseng sat at the head of the table. Immediately to his left sat Rosalind, radiating happiness, and then Rude, listening carefully and offering the occasional pithy comment. Next to Rude sat Cavour, idly turning the small gold hoop in his left ear; next to Cavour, Aviva, surreptitiously rubbing at the ache in her game leg. Left of Aviva sat Knox, the dent in his skull clearly visible beneath the fuzz of new hair on his scalp; then Reno, tieless, shirt unbuttoned, half-asleep; then Skeeter, doodling explosions all over his note pad; then Mink, her rangy body slung sideways in her chair; and finally Mozo, his stiff brush of brown hair standing upright as if in astonishment above his beetling brows.

The rookie was out on patrol in Sector Eight. In the six weeks that had passed since Hunter joined the department, she had set a new monster killing record.

Tseng turned over the page of his briefing notebook, and continued, "Item three. New weapons testing, Quadra Island. Standard procedure. Rude, Mink, Skeeter, you'll be away three days. The helicopter leaves at 14.00 hours. You'll be accompanied by Director Scarlet and her P.A. Now, item four – Ciara Bloom, freelance hacker. What can you tell us about her, Rosalind?"

"We caught her attempting to break into our S-level encrypted files. She's had quite a field day with our less protected stuff. But she's cocky. She didn't cover her tracks as well as she thought she did. This is her picture –" Rosalind handed the paper across to Cavour – "And her address."

Cavour whistled. "Posh."

"Yes," said Tseng, "She's making good money. Find out who's paying her before you sort her out. Usual drill: bring back what you can, destroy what you can't…"

Meanwhile, Reno's thoughts were drifting. These jobs on the table were nothing out of the ordinary, mere Turk bread and butter. He'd already been assigned his own mission: find and bring in whichever employee was passing stolen items from the Shinra shop to the fences in Wall Market. Cakewalk.

His eyelids felt like they had weights attached to them. He'd had a rough night. Broken sleep. Intense dreams….

Tseng was saying, "Now, next item – the runaway pre-cog."

Skeeter asked, "Is it true they've lost their mojo?"

Tseng nodded. "Three of them are burnt out and the others are fading. It looks like putting them on mako literally drained their batteries."

"So why do we want this one back, sir? I mean, if he's no use?" asked Aviva.

"The integrity of the program has to be protected. With what he knows, and without his powers, he's too vulnerable. He was spotted in Kalm two days ago and may well still be there. Here's the dossier." He pushed the folder across to her. "Aviva, Mozo, you need to find him before our enemies do. Bring him back if you can. Otherwise….."

_Last night I dreamed of you. I lost you; I found you –_

Dreams, Reno reflected, could feel realer than the real thing. Awkwardly real. He'd been woken last night from his vivid dream by a girl whose name he couldn't quite remember; she'd kicked him and demanded, in an offended kind of way, to know just who the hell this _Cissnei_ was. Well, there was no way he could tolerate that – the sound of her name on some strange girl's tongue - so he'd got dressed and left and found a bar open late, or early, depending on how you looked at it, and then wandered back to the office and caught a little shut-eye in the lounge –

"I'd like to move on to the last item on our agenda," said Tseng. "AVALANCHE."

"They've been quiet too long," said Knox. "They're planning something."

_Well, duh,_ thought Reno.

Tseng said, "The Commander thinks their next move will be against Midgar, and that it will be a small-scale pinpoint raid against a single specific target. The worst case scenario would be an attack on the reactors. They've tried to blow one up before, and we have to expect that they'll try again, probably quite soon. I know security's been doubled, but – "

Reno stifled a yawn. Same old yada yada: don't relax your vigilance, keep your eyes and ears open, never forget they're out to get you. Sometimes Tseng acted like he thought they were _all_ rookies.

It was frustrating, though, having to hang around waiting for AVALANCHE to make the first move. None of them liked being thrown onto the back foot like this, relying on guesswork, never able to relax, and never able to attack. What they needed - and what seemed impossible to get – was _information –_

Out of the blue the idea struck him.

It came ready-assembled, complete down to the last detail. He saw at once that it was foolproof. And it was brilliant.

Fuck it, _he_ was brilliant. The Boss was going to _love_ him for this.

Tseng said, "… That's all. Dismiss," and began to gather his papers. The other Turks got to their feet and left, coffee cups in hand, dispersing to their various assignments. Reno remained seated, one arm thrown over the back of his chair, drumming his fingers impatiently.

Tseng looked up. "Don't you have work to do?"

"I've had an idea. Thought you might like to hear it."

"About what?"

"Just a sec. I don't want Rude to overhear this." Reno went to the door, closed it, pulled a chair close to Tseng, and sat down. "It's about AVALANCHE. I think we need to pull a Chelsey on them."

Tseng frowned. "What?"

"You know. Get inside. Infiltrate them. Find out what they're doing."

Tseng leaned back in his seat, arms folded, and gave his subordinate a considering stare, as if he couldn't quite decide whether Reno was pulling his leg or being serious.

"You haven't forgotten Chelsey?" Reno asked him.

"Reno, do you really think that idea has never occurred to us?"

"Well, if it has, you haven't done anything about it, because everybody's still….."

The words died on his lips as the realization hit him.

It was one of those moments of illumination that were almost blinding in their obviousness. So, that was what she was up to! Reno felt a prick of annoyance with himself for having been so dense. Then, as the revelation took shape more firmly in his mind, and he realized exactly what it was that Tseng and the Chief had had in mind when they chose Cissnei for this mission, a wave of pure relief swept through him that felt almost like joy. He burst out laughing.

"What?" Tseng frowned. "What's so funny?"

"Boss, all I can say is, if Fuhito's your mark, you'd have done better to send Skeeter."

"Reno, I've warned you before not to speculate about other Turks' missions."

"Oh, come on. Tell me I'm wrong, then."

Tseng kept his lips sealed. He didn't look happy.

Reno grinned. "See? I knew it. But you're way off beam with this one. Our friend Fu-fu-fu-hito's as gay as a rainbow chocobo – you only have to look at him to know that. I've meet the guy, remember?" He paused, and went on more seriously, "Don't you ever think sometimes you might be taking this whole secretiveness shit a bit too far? I mean, you could have asked me. You could have said, Hey, Reno, you've met this twat, twice, so what d'you make of him? I could have saved you a lot of trouble. Could have saved us all a lot of time. So – has she had any luck?"

"None whatsoever," Tseng admitted.

"She made contact with them?"

"We thought so, once, but the trail dried up."

They both fell silent. Reno continued to study his boss' face closely. Tseng stared off into the middle distance, his eyes hooded, his thoughts veiled.

Reno was not deceived. He broke the silence, "Don't tell me you're not thinking about Nats, because I know you are."

"We're all in danger," replied Tseng slowly. "Whether we're here in Midgar, or out in the field. The less people who know about her mission, the safer she is. We haven't told the Board."

"I guess that's why she's still alive." A pulse of fear shot through him. "She _is_ still alive, isn't she? When did you last hear from her?"

"The day before yesterday."

Reno took a deep breath. "So she's OK. For now. But it's been months. Her mission's a failure, you said so yourself. And the longer she's out there, the more she's exposed. You should bring her home, Boss. Tell the Chief he needs to bring her home."

"If we bring her home, we have nothing."

"We've got nothing now, so we've got nothing to lose. Maybe you should try something different."

"And you have a suggestion?"

This came out a little more sarcastically than Tseng had perhaps intended. Reno grinned. "Yeah, I do. It came to me in a flash of genius just as I was nodding off during the meeting."

Tseng raised his eyebrows. "All right. Tell me."

"Send Charlie instead." And when Tseng made a gesture as if to brush the notion aside, Reno insisted, "C'mon, think about it. He'd be perfect. He's changed sides before, so they'd believe it of him. And they'd want him. The Legend. Feather in their cap. And it'd be easy to come up with some story for him, like he's after more money, or he's sick of the way you've been treating him after all those years in Costa. They'd swallow that. Seriously, Boss – Charlie's the only one of us with a rat's chance of infiltrating AVALANCHE. You should bring Ciss home, and send him. If, that is, you trust him."

"I'd trust him with my life," said Tseng with feeling.

"Yeah? You didn't use to feel that way."

"I think I understand him better now."

Reno was torn between exasperation and amusement. _Sometimes_, he thought, _I just don't get this guy at all._ The Boss took likings to the most unlikely people, people you'd think he'd have more reason to loathe. Like Zack Fair. And now Charlie. But whatever. If it brought Cissnei home, Reno was good with it. And who knew – Charlie might blow himself up. Or he might even succeed. If he couldn't, no one could: Reno was sure of that much, at least.

"So how about a bonus for my brilliant idea, Boss?"

"Nice try," Tseng almost smiled. "But any inspirations you have on company time are Shinra's intellectual property. You ought to know that, Reno."

* * *

_Notes:_

_The 'gay as a rainbow chocobo' line is borrowed in loving homage from OrgLIX and their 'Crisis Perverted' series on youtube; it seemed exactly like the kind of saying that would have common currency in Shinra's world. The new Turk 'Hunter' is more usually called 'Shotgun', and is the one most often featured in scripts or downloads of BC gameplay._


	23. This Train We're On

**CHAPTER 23: THIS TRAIN WE'RE ON  
**_**In which Aviva sees more than is good for her, and plans must be changed at short notice**_

_**

* * *

**_

_Extract from Aviva's Diary_

_3rd June, 2002_

_…. Shooting competition down at the range today. It just kind of happened. Roz was coaching me, and Hunter and Cavs showed up for practice. Cavs said, 'let's do best of thirty, winner buys a round'. Hunter says, 'I don't drink', and Cavs says, 'even if you don't raise your wrist you can still open your wallet, can't you?' So she gets huffy and says 'bring it on'. _

_ It was pistols. Roz won. Nobody's better than her, not even Mr Tseng. She awes me. It was kind of silly, though, because they're all amazing in their own way. Hunter is the best with a rifle and Cavs can hit two targets at the same time with two different shotguns __while he's moving__, even if he doesn't hit the bullseyes. _

_ I wasn't in the running, of course, though I'm pretty handy with a pistol now. I'm still the best with the knives. On the other hand, I don't exactly have a lot of competition. _

_ I kind of hoped Hunter and me would become friends. But she's let us all know that she doesn't need friends. If she made friends with anyone it would be Cavs. They can talk about guns until you want to go stick your head in the toilet and flush it. But she rubs him up the wrong way because she always has to know best. So they end up arguing._

_ R has a nickname for her. He calls her 'Honey'. She can't stand it. He knows; that's why he does it. If she were friendlier I'd tell her not to let him see that he gets under her skin. I'm quite the expert on that subject…._

_._

Tseng said no more to Reno about his suggestion regarding Charlie. Although it came hard to him, Reno resisted the urge to ask. On the eighth of June his patience was rewarded, when he slid his hand into his pigeonhole and pulled out another postcard.

_Mission concluded. I'll be home in a week. Looking forward to seeing you. Let's find some time to talk._

_._

_Extracts from Aviva's diary_

_15__th__ June, 2002_

_ …He's been acting kind of odd all week. Restless – I mean, more so than usual. Jumpy and distracted. Years ago when I was really small I remember having a birthday and being so excited about it, I couldn't wait. That's how R is now. I wonder why…._

_._

_16__th__ June, 2002_

_Dear Diary, _

_A new girl started in the office today…. Except she's not a new girl, she's been with the Department for years, they said. Knox, Moe, Roz, Rude, they all know her really well and were so happy to see her. Break out the champagne! And so on. We, I mean us noobs, never even knew she existed. Of course we'll never know why she was kept a secret. All this wondering and not knowing does my head in sometimes…. _

.

Cissnei returned to the office like a ray of spring sunshine shining alike on the just and the unjust, sharing her smiles equally among them all. She accepted a hug from Mozo, and laid the back of her hand gently against Knox's scarred face; she stood on tip-toe to kiss Rude's cheek, threw her arms around Rosalind, and laughingly pretended to straighten Tseng's tie.

Reno she held at arm's length, clasping his hands loosely.

Why did she insist on this distance? What was she afraid of?

_I forgive you. I miss you. I dreamed of you_. Had she written those words, or had _he_ dreamt them?

"It's getting so crowded in here!" she laughed, going round and shaking the hands of all the new ones. "And Reno, my god, your cat's still here!"

Then she was summoned upstairs to debrief, and he didn't see her for the rest of the morning.

Rude took him aside. "Be careful."

'What?" Reno jittered. "What are you talking about?"

"You know." Rude gave him a look over the tops of his sunglasses. "You want the Chief to fry your ass?"

"That obvious, huh?"

"I'm just saying."

He couldn't sit still. He found excuses to run around the building, doing errands. When that palled, he spent half an hour on the treadmill. In the afternoon she came back to the office, and he managed, at last, to catch her alone in the kitchen.

"Tonight," he said, "Come for a drink. We can talk."

She folded her arms across her chest in that way she had, and wouldn't meet his eyes. "We're all going to the Goblins tonight. First round's on me. I'm looking forward to getting to know the new guys. I shouldn't really call them the new guys, though, should I? To them, I must be the new guy. So much has changed – "

"Not me."

Was it his imagination, or did she actually look at him for a split second, before her glance slid away onto the innocuous coffee pot? "No," she said, "You never change, do you? I mean, look at you – "

Aviva limped in through the doorway, saw them, turned red and stammered, "Oh, excuse me – "

"It's OK, you're not interrupting anything," Cissnei smiled. "You want coffee? Give me your mug, I'll be mother. Sugar? Three? Oh, you've got a wicked sweet tooth, just like me. Milk? Say when. Hey, I like those earrings. Where did you get them?..."

She and Aviva went out of the kitchen together, with Cissnei doing all the talking.

That night Reno arrived at the Goblins early and kept the seat beside him free, but when Cissnei finally arrived she cheerfully insisted on drawing up a chair between Mink and Skeeter. Fine; it didn't matter; he could wait. Sooner or later, when everyone else had gone home, he would have her to himself. And if she tried to outsmart him by leaving early, he would follow her, tail her through the streets of Midgar until he found where she was staying, and he would knock on her door, and if she didn't answer, that wouldn't matter either, because there wasn't a lock made that could keep Reno of the Turks out of any place he wanted to be. And then they would talk. He just wanted to talk to her.

But eventually, as the evening wore on, he had to excuse himself to use the washrooms, and though he was as fast as he could be, when he returned to their table, she was gone.

"She said she's worn out," Mozo told him. "And I can't say I blame her. It's been a while, hasn't it? Well, who's for another round? Come on, Reno – sit down and chip in."

They were all looking at him expectantly.

And even though it was the last thing he wanted to do, he sat back down, thinking, _never mind, never mind. Stay cool. There's always tomorrow._

_._

_Extract from Aviva's diary_

_16__th__ June, 2002, continued_

_ …It's so unfair. She's so beautiful, and she doesn't even have to try. She wears the same suit as the rest of us, and she doesn't have any make-up, and she doesn't do anything with her hair, just lets it part in the middle and fall sort of straggly either side of her face, and she's still so gorgeous I feel sick just thinking about it. She isn't even all that much taller than me, and she's kind of skinny, and she's got no hips, but it doesn't matter, because she has __It__ – she's the girl everyone turns to look at when she walks into a room. _

_ And she's nice. She's really nice. I wish she wasn't. I wish I could loathe her guts. But I can't._

_ He looks at her the way Phil looks at Roz. Like Rude used to look at Chelsey._

_ I don't know who else sees this. Rude does, I think. I catch him looking at the two of them, and when he sees me, he quickly looks somewhere else. _

_ I'm watching all of them, and no one's watching me. _

_._

When Reno came into work the next morning she was already there, head bent over her paperwork as if she'd never been away. For a little while he was content merely to watch her out of the corner of his eye. Even the sound of her pen scratching across the forms was sweet, when he had missed it for so long. Only now did he fully realize how empty the office had been without her – like a lamp without a bulb. Like an unmade bed growing cold in the morning…

By 11.30 he had had enough of waiting. It was time to take the initiative. Rolling his chair across the floor, he slid a pile of papers under Cissnei's elbow. "For your _earliest_ attention," he said.

Rolling back to his desk, he watched her as she leafed through them. They were printouts of old mission reports from two, three years ago, missions they'd carried out together. At the bottom of the last one he'd written, in pencil, 'why are you avoiding me?'

_Private email_

_Subject: Back off_

_From: Cissnei_

_To: Reno_

_Date: 2002/06/17 11.46 am_

_I just got back! Let me catch my breath, OK?_

Having read this, he looked up and saw her putting the old mission reports through the shredder. The only other person in the office was Rosalind, deeply engrossed in something on her computer screen. Reno cleared his throat loudly. Rosalind ignored him, but Cissnei glanced up. He stuck his tongue out at her.

Score! She started giggling; she couldn't help herself. Just like old times.

_Fuckwit_, she mouthed at him, smiling.

He held up his hands as if to say, _what can I do about it? _ Then he pointed at her, at himself, made a talking hand sign, and mouthed the question, _When?_

She mimed the action of someone screwing his thumb down too hard.

_Me_? he gestured, all innocence.

She tapped her watch, put her hands on either side of her head, and danced around in a little circle. He had no idea what she was trying to convey, but it was fun to watch her.

"Ahem," said Rosalind, who had looked up and was observing this foolery with some amusement.

Cissnei acted out a dramatic sigh, rolling her eyes and slumping her shoulders. Then she said, "Saturday," and turned back to her desk.

"Saturday what?" asked Rosalind.

"Big date," said Cissnei.

"That's nice," said Rosalind absently, returning to her emails, and to dreams of a big date of her own.

.

_Later that same day, an awkward moment…_

At 12.00 noon exactly, Cissnei and Rosalind were called to the Commander's office, leaving Reno alone. Rosalind returned about an hour later, and told him that Cissnei had gone for lunch. He hurried out after her, but the trail was cold; he had to content himself with a sandwich and a plastic cup of beer, bought from a mobile stall under the Clock Arch and eaten standing up. It was one of those rare days when the clouds above Midgar briefly parted, allowing glimpses of the blue sky beyond. People had seated themselves all around the fountain and on the steps leading to the upper streets; they tipped their heads back, basking in the sun's rays. Dusty golden fingers of light touched the roof of the Shinra building. Reno felt absurdly happy.

On the way back, he bumped into Cissnei in the mezzanine. She looked a little distracted, but when she saw him her expression cleared and she smiled. "Going up?" she said. They had the elevator to themselves. The doors were just closing, when someone on the other side pressed the button. Reno inwardly cursed. The lift juddered, and the doors slid open again.

It was Zack.

He stared at them both with those monstrous blue eyes, and took a step backwards.

"Oh, don't be an ass," said Cissnei. "Get in."

They had to shuffle round to accommodate the sword he was wearing on his back. The doors closed, and the elevator began its ascent.

"Hey. Cissnei. Reno," said Zack a little stiffly, and much too late.

"How are you?" said Cissnei.

"Well, you know," he said. "Same as usual."

"And how's Aerith?"

He gave her a wary glance. "She's OK."

"Lazard keeping you busy?"

She was making a brave job of it, but Reno could hear the tiny quiver in her voice. He put a hand on the small of her back, just to steady her – though from Zack's perspective the gesture might well look a little possessive, he acknowledged, noting with satisfaction how those blue eyes narrowed. Cissnei made no move to brush Reno's hand away; in fact, he could have sworn he felt her lean into his touch, just a fraction.

"The Executive Director's been out of the office all week," Zack told them. "It's been kind of quiet. I'm going down with one of your guys to Mideel tomorrow, and then next week I'm off on furlough."

"Nice," said Cissnei. "You and Aerith going somewhere?"

"Just me," said Zack. "I was kind of told to take my holiday now. Not really in the mood, to be honest."

"I wouldn't complain," said Reno. "At least you get one."

"Here's our floor," said Cissnei. She stepped out of the elevator, with Reno right behind, his hand still pressing against her back. She stopped, turned round, and said, "Nice talking with you, Zack. See you sometime, maybe."

Zack rubbed his spiky shock of black hair. "Yeah. Sure," he said as the doors closed in front of his face. Then he was gone.

Cissnei shook her head. "He never learns, does he?"

"What?" asked Reno.

"To keep his big gob shut." She drew a long, ragged breath. "Well, that's over. You can take your hand off me now."

Reluctantly, he did so. "You OK, Ciss?"

"Yeah. It was a shock, but not the way you think." She'd turned to face him, arms crossed, one hand touching her chin thoughtfully. "He's like a big kid, isn't he? You know what they used to call him, Angeal and the others? The puppy, falling over his own feet. He _is _kind of dopey looking, really, isn't he? _And _he's two years younger than I am. What did I ever see in him? I must have been certifiably insane."

He wanted so badly to believe her that he wasn't sure he dared to.

"About Saturday – " he began.

"Oh, yeah. About that. Listen, Reno – I have to go away tomorrow. That's what the Commander was seeing Roz and me about. He's sending us on a mission."

"Uh-huh," said Reno, wondering what the truth was. "What mission?"

"It's Lazard," she said. "He's not just 'out of the office'. He's gone and done a runner, and he's taken all the SOLDIER data with him."

.

_Form /REP:2S_

_**SHINRA ELECTRIC COMPANY**_

_**Department of Administrative Research**_

_**Incident Report**_

_Date:__ 17__th__/18__th__ June 2002_

_Time:__ c. 23.00 pm -2.00 am_

_Location:__ Shinra Headquarters, Midgar_

_Report filed by:__ Tseng_

_Summary:__ AVALANCHE attack: HQ security breached, labs invaded, classified samples released. Turks mobilized. Professor Hojo abducted, r__escued by Sephiroth._

_**Analysis:**_

_A small group of AVALANCHE operatives (approx.10-12) breached HQ security at around 23.00 hours on the night of the 17__th__ June 2002; a subsequent body search of dead operatives revealed they were carrying forged key cards. Enemy made their way directly to the laboratories on the 66__th__ floor, demonstrating an in-depth knowledge of the layout of the high security areas of the building. They killed the guards and the scientists on duty and released a number of classified research samples, the intention evidently being to tie up the Turks in the recapture and/or elimination of said samples. All Turks were immediately mobilized. Evacuation of upper floors was initiated, and the Executive Boardroom was put into lockdown. _

_ AVALANCHE operatives, including their leader Fuhito, escaped with Professor Hojo via the roof, stealing a helicopter. The Turk who witnessed the event states that Professor Hojo did not appear to go unwillingly. The President ordered that Sephiroth be called out to deal with the problem._

_ The other helicopters having been disabled, I continued the pursuit by jeep, accompanied by agents Rosalind, Cavour, and Hunter. The enemy agent known as 'Shears' bombed the highway; jeep crashed. Rosalind unconscious; Cavour's arm broken. I fought Shears. Helicopter returned and picked him up. Large dragon-type monster manifested itself – it remains unclear if this was the result of enemy action or if its lair was under the highway, in which case the bomb must have woken it. _

_ Team undertook attack on dragon. Dragon was exceedingly powerful. All attempts to subdue it were unsuccessful. Sephiroth arrived -_

Tseng's fingers paused on the keyboard. A formal incident report was not the place to put into words the feelings experienced by himself and the other Turks at the sight of Sephiroth in action. Yet no matter how he phrased it, the sequence of events that followed would seem unbelievable to anyone who had not seen it with their own eyes:

_Sephiroth killed the dragon with one stroke. He disabled the helicopter from a distance of about one mile using Fire materia and then brought it safely to ground using Gravity…._

At times like this Tseng was compelled to wonder why somebody with Sephiroth's powers was, apparently, content to go through life taking orders from Shinra. Fighting never seemed to give him any pleasure. He manifested neither excitement at the prospect of battle nor satisfaction when he had won, but merely came in, did his stuff, and left, leaving awe and fear in his wake. His strength was such that, had he chosen to, he could have taken over the company by barely lifting a finger. Yet this thought had apparently never occurred to the Old Man, who trusted Sephiroth in a way that he'd never trusted either of his own sons. It was as if… As if the President took it for granted that Sephiroth was incapable of wanting anything that Shinra did not choose to give him; as if he had no desires of his own. The human lightning bolt –

But that was the question, wasn't it?

A question it was not Tseng's business to ask. Either way, what did it matter? Man or monster, as long as Sephiroth worked for Shinra, he was an ally, and if the day ever came when he decided to follow in Genesis' footsteps and turn against Shinra, he would be dealt with.

The Turks always found a way. During this very attack, Skeeter had worked out how to destroy AVALANCHE's respawning black Ravens: he'd pushed the one he'd found in Hojo's lab into the incinerator, and that had finished it off. They key, then, was to completely destroy their physical bodies before they had time to regenerate. Skeeter had shown commendable resourcefulness; Tseng reminded himself not to forget to mention it. First, though, he'd finish this report –

_Professor Hojo recovered unharmed from downed helicopter. No sign of Shears or other AVALANCHE operatives. Professor Hojo said they parachuted from the helicopter shortly before Sephiroth appeared. I called for transport, and escorted the Professor back to HQ. Supervised clean-up of labs._

_Casualties: __Injured.__ The following Turks sustained serious, but non-life-threatening injuries: Skeeter, Rosalind, Hunter, Cavour, Rude._

_Casualities: Dead.__ Sergeant Caulfield; Warrant Officer Strang; Private Lee; Dr. Samira Rayleigh; Dr Philip Harper; Angela Nomura, lab asst. The bodies of seven AVALANCHE operatives were also recovered._

"Good work," said the Commander, as he counter-signed the report. "They may have got past our security, but they left with empty hands. I suppose it's a victory for us that Hojo is back. So was he our mole, do you think?"

"It looks that way," said Tseng. "But I don't think he'll be leaking any more information to them. He seemed quite… disappointed in their whole operation. He said he had been misled into believing their achievements were more significant than they turned out to be. And of course he was delighted with Sephiroth's performance."

"Rufus was spitting fury in the Boardroom," Veld told him. "I've never seen the boy so angry. "

"He thought it was Hojo all along," Tseng pointed out.

"How many of the samples did you have to kill?"

"All of them."

"Well, it'll keep Hojo busy, making some more." Veld paused. "It's a shame about Dr Harper. He seemed like a decent guy. How's Rosalind?"

"Too concussed to take it in."

"Poor girl. It's a damned tragedy. Bloody AVALANCHE. They'll pay for all this one day, Tseng, we'll make sure of that. Not that that will bring her man back. We must do whatever is necessary to help her get through this. She's going to need to take some time off."

"I'll offer it, sir. But my guess is she'll prefer to work."

"Well, we'll let her set the pace. In the meantime, someone will have to replace her on the Lazard mission. Send Reno. He's been down in the bowels of the plate for the last five months; he deserves some fly time. And he works well with Cissnei, doesn't he?"

"I think he's very glad she's back. Reno's not always the easiest man to work with, as you know, sir, but he's completely loyal to his partners."

"Yes, they always made a good team. It's settled then. Make the arrangements." Veld stood up. "I'm going to go sit with Rosalind for a while."


	24. Just Say The Word

**CHAPTER 24: JUST SAY THE WORD  
_In which Reno discovers the answer to a question that has been bothering him for some time.  
_**_[note: this chapter rated M for sex, violence, and language] _

**

* * *

**

They were halfway across the Inland Sea, with no land in sight in any direction, before Reno could get a word out of Cissnei beyond what was strictly necessary. She sat in the co-pilot's seat with her body curved away from him, staring out the window at the crinkled surface of the ocean far below.

"C'mon, Ciss, quit sulking."

Her only response was to hunch her shoulders up a little higher.

He tried again. "I didn't _ask_ to come on this goddamn mission, you know."

"It should have been Roz," she muttered.

God, Roz. Splinted, bandaged and dazed in an infirmary bed, unaware that something worse than a grenade was going to hit her as soon as she came round. He was glad he didn't have to be the one to tell her.

"Fucking AVALANCHE," Cissnei snarled.

"We'll get them."

She glanced over at him, and the look in her eyes softened to something slightly less glowering. "Damn right," she said; then, folding her arms, she turned back and continued staring out the window.

* * *

_They've been gone for nearly three hours now_, thought Aviva back at the office, _and I still can't make up my mind. Or maybe it's too late. I should have said something straight away. But what? _

Why couldn't Mr Tseng, who saw so much, and always knew the right thing to do, not see what was under his nose? Was it because he had none of those feelings himself? A person who'd never been in love wouldn't know what it looked like, would he? Reno said Mr Tseng was in love with their Sector Five surveillance target; he said that was why they had to stake out the church and keep an eye on her all the time, but Aviva knew he was just joking.

_I don't want to get them into trouble, _she told herself. _I want to keep them __out__ of trouble. What I feel isn't important right now. I have to do what's right._

_

* * *

_

Reno refused to dwell on thoughts of Rosalind, or the chain of events that had brought him here, to the cockpit of this helicopter, with Cissnei so close he could put out a hand and touch her. He refused to think about Lazard, or AVALANCHE, or Tseng, or Genesis, or Shinra. The only thing that mattered was happening here, now.

The afternoon sunlight poured through the windscreen and lit up each mote of dust. It was as if he was breathing stars.

Cissnei's hair shone gold. All he could see of her face was the curve of her cheekbone. The cockpit was warm with the heat of the sun and their own bodies. The scent of Cissnei, her skin, her hair, filled his senses.

The air between them was charged with anticipation, like the sky over the Grasslands before an electrical storm. All the little hairs down his arms were standing on end.

She was staring out the window like she couldn't feel it. Who did she think she was kidding?

* * *

_Why should I have to be the one to say something? _Aviva thought almost angrily. _What if he found out it was me? He'd never forgive me. I can't do it, I can't. What about Rude? Why doesn't he speak up?_

Rude had been hurt in the action last night, but he'd been Cured and he was fine. Now he was sitting at his desk with his head down, and though Aviva kept trying to catch his eye, she couldn't. He was doing it deliberately, she could tell.

Finally she came to a decision. Getting to her feet, she walked over to Rude's desk and stood there waiting, hands on hips. Eventually he was forced to look up. She saw at once that he was thinking what she was thinking; she was getting quite adept at seeing past the defense of his purple lenses. A small crease had appeared between his eyebrows, and his mouth curved downwards.

He gave her a hard look. Then he shook his head, very slightly. A piece of advice; a warning.

_Don't get involved._

* * *

They had left the golden beaches and red tiled roofs of Costa del Sol far behind them, and were passing over the spine of the mountain range that ran down the length of the Western Continent, when Reno decided that Cissnei had been silent long enough. With any girl, in his experience, the crucial thing was to keep them talking. So he said, "Explain to me again why we're going to Nibelheim."

Cissnei glanced at him from the corner of her eye – warily? Wearily? Hard to tell – and shifted in her seat so that he could now see her profile. "We've known for months that Hollander was working with Genesis, and now we've got evidence Lazard's been funding them. Since we've no leads on where Lazard has gone, we start by checking out the places connected to Genesis. Roz ran a stats analysis a couple of days ago, and Nibelheim's the place with the largest number of clone sightings."

"Anyone talk to Hollander?"

"Yeah." For the first time, Cissnei smiled. "Tseng did."

Reno chuckled. After his brush with death on the runaway elevator, the thought of Hollander in the Boss' hands was something to savour.

The sound of his laughter seemed to please her. She gave him another quick glance, another little smile. "Yeah. But turns out Hollander knows nothing that we didn't know already. The Chief thinks Lazard will lie low until the fuss dies down and then try to make contact with Hollander. Nibelheim's an obvious choice for a hideout. It's remote, and there's all those caves in the mountains beyond the town. Somebody could hide there for years and never be found."

"And there's the mansion," said Reno. "God knows what stuff's still in there. Isn't there an old lab in the basement, from when the reactor was first built? How long's that place been shut up?"

"I dunno. Longer than we've been working for Shinra, anyhow."

"So where d'you want to start?"

"The reactor?" she suggested. "Might as well talk to our own people first. Where can you land?"

"I can set it down behind the mansion. Then we'll have to walk."

"What about the cable car?"

"Down for routine maintenance, Tseng told me."

"Screw that," said Cissnei. "Let's see if we can get some chocobos."

.

There were no chocobos.

The man at the inn thought that if they drove south for an hour or so they might come to a farm where the farmer sometimes had chocobos for hire. Maybe just one. Or it might have been sold. He wasn't sure.

"They've got mountain chocobos up at the reactor," said Reno. "I could call them and ask them to bring a couple down for us."

Cissnei shook her head. "It'll be dark in an hour, anyway. Let's just check in. We can use the time until dinner to talk to the townspeople, find out what they know. We'll go up the mountain tomorrow."

"This is on the Shinra account, right?" said the innkeeper. "Two singles?"

"Yes, please," said Cissnei.

.

They met again for dinner in the little dining room at the back of the inn. There were no other guests. The room had a pleasant atmosphere: colourful rugs brightened the cedarwood floor, and the walls were half-timbered, dark beams angling through rough white plaster. A red and white checked cloth covered the table where Cissnei and Reno sat. In the big stone fireplace a pyramid of logs was burning brightly: the heat from the fire warmed Reno's back and Cissnei's face. The only other light in the room came from half a dozen yellow candles, jammed into old wine bottles set out on the tables.

"Rustic," was Reno's comment.

The menu comprised a single item: rabbit stew with potatoes.

"And two cold beers," Reno ordered. He lit a cigarette, turned to Cissnei, and asked her, "So, what did you find out?"

"I found out that this inn is haunted. And the mansion. And the mountain paths. The reactor's haunted too, go figure. A weird kid told me. He was hard to shake off."

"I met a weird kid," said Reno. "But mine was a girl. Some jailbait loli in a cowboy costume. She said she was a guide but she looked simple-minded to me."

"This place is full of weird kids. Maybe it's all the mako in the water."

"Nah," said Reno. "They're just inbred. Did you talk to any of the adults?"

They were interrupted by the arrival of their beer, so deliciously cold that a film of water had condensed on the glasses. Cissnei took a long sip, wiped the foam from her mouth with the back of her hand, and said, "Nobody's seen anything suspicious. Or if they have, they're not talking. But I think they would tell us. Shinra's not unpopular here. The whole economy of this town depends on the reactor. Before Shinra came here, this place was nothing but a few huts clinging to the side of the mountain, and now look what they've got. Power, running water, phones, TV..."

But Reno had stopped listening to her long before, at the moment when she'd wiped the foam from her mouth, leaving her lips slightly reddened and moist, glistening in the candlelight. The way those lips moved, the shapes they formed, mesmerized him. The soft line of an 'm' – the kiss-pursed 'p' – the round, surprised 'o'… A little triangle of pink, the tip of her tongue, darted out to lick a stray drop of beer from the corner of her mouth, then shyly hid itself again behind her small white teeth -

"… So what might seem to a kid to be a ghost could actually be someone who's doing their best to avoid being seen. I think it might be worth looking into. Don't you? Reno? Reno! Have you heard a word I said?"

Slowly he blinked his heavy eyelids. His teeth parted in a suggestive smile. "I love it when you talk shop," he breathed.

Cissnei frowned at him. "Cut it out, Red. Look, here's our food."

The stew was bland. He toyed with it for a minute, then pushed it away.

"C'mon, you have to eat," said Cissnei.

"Not hungry."

"You need to look after yourself."

"Stop nagging me."

Cissnei put her fork down. "All right. I didn't want to say this, but I'm going to. You don't look good, Reno. You've lost weight – a lot of weight. Hasn't anybody said anything? There's hollows under your cheeks and your collarbones are sticking out. And your hair, it's – it used to be so glossy. Now it's like a sick animal. To tell the truth, you look kind of… seedy. Like you've been living on booze and cigarettes ever since I went away…."

She tailed off, realizing what she'd said: what she'd acknowledged.

Reno took a long drag on a fresh cigarette. The smoke curled from his nostrils. "Yeah. Since then."

"You know what?" said Cissnei. "I'm really not hungry either. I think I'll go to my room – "

She started to push back her chair, but perhaps she had forgotten just how fast he could move; a split second later his hand was around her arm, pinning it to the table. For someone so thin, he was very strong. Cissnei froze.

"Let go of me," she said quietly.

"Make me."

"You want me to fight you?"

His grin stretched. "Maybe. Why not? Getting physical. Better'n nothing."

"Reno," she squirmed in his grip. "Stop it."

"I just want you to talk to me. We started this conversation almost a year ago. We need to finish it."

"I told you – "

"I remember. And I remember what you wrote to me on those postcards. And all I want to know is – do you ever think about it?"

She hesitated.

He was so close to her that he could see himself reflected in her eyes. The tattoos on his cheekbones look like scars carved into his face.

Cissnei turned her head. "No," she said.

But she was lying. He had seen it in the way her own eyes had grown a little sleepy, the pupils dilating, just before she looked away. She'd been thinking about it, all right. She was imagining it right now. She'd been dreaming about it for months. That's why she had been fighting so hard to keep the distance between them: she'd been afraid of what would happen if she let her guard down.

She wanted him. Or she wanted what he was offering, if only she would allow herself to take it.

He loosened his grip, though he did not take his hand off her arm. If she had really wanted to she could have broken free. She did not move.

Holding his breath, he gently stroked his thumb against the smoothness of her inner wrist.

"Don't do that," she said without much conviction. "I thought you - wanted to talk to me."

Beneath the skin of her wrist he could feel the pulse of a quickening heartbeat. She did not try to take her hand away, though it remained clenched. Still moving his thumb in a slow caress, he said, "How long's it been?"

Cissnei closed her eyes. "Since Zack, nobody," she admitted.

"Mmm. Long time. And you never think of it? Doesn't it drive you crazy sometimes – "

"Oh, don't," she said huskily.

Her hand had lost a little of its tension. It softened and opened. He stroked its palm with his fingertips. Cissnei shivered.

He said, "You know it would be good between us."

"It would be insane. The Chief would skin us alive and hang us out to dry."

"Might be worth it," he said. "We won't know until we try."

With one finger he traced the thin blue line of the vein that ran up her forearm. Cissnei held herself motionless. He pushed back her sleeve. Bending his head, he pressed a kiss into the soft crook of her elbow. Cissnei made a noise deep inside her throat. He licked her skin, tasted its faint saltiness, its musk. Cissnei trembled and swallowed hard.

Her voice quivered a little when she spoke. "I'll admit I am – attracted to you. But I don't…"

He lifted his head, leaned in closer. "What don't you?" he whispered in her ear.

"I don't – love you like that. I'd just – be using you…"

He put his mouth to her ear. "What are friends for?"

"No," she said; but she didn't try to move or push him away. He put out his tongue, touched its tip to the shell of her ear.

"Oh god," she groaned, "This is crazy."

"It's OK,' he said, forcing himself to sound calmer than he felt. His own pulse was drumming; his longing for her was in danger of escaping his control. He didn't want to frighten her off now, not when she was so close to giving in. By a triumph of self-will he kept his touch light as he kissed his way along her jawline, her ear, and down the nape of her neck where the short, soft hairs sprang. Cissnei sat very still and allowed him to do it. Her skin was growing flushed and hot.

"Mmm," he whispered in her ear. "You taste good."

She was breathing in sharp little gasps. He ran his hand over her collarbone and down the front of her shirt to close around her breast. She wasn't wearing a bra. Against the palm of his hand her breast felt heavier than he had imagined, solid yet softly yielding, with a stiff little nipple swollen like the erection now pressing with painful insistence against his fly. It was all he could do to resist the urge to bite her.

"Don't…" she murmured.

"What?"

"Unh – don't stop – "

He ran his tongue along the intricate folds of her ear, then took the fleshy pierced lobe between his lips and suckled on it, gently moving the small stud with his tongue. Cissnei sighed and shivered.

"I don't love you either," he said in her ear, sliding two fingers under the waistband of her trousers. He felt the hard muscles of her abdomen tighten with desire. "I just want to fuck you."

That little word, so often bandied about carelessly between them, seemed to be all that was needed to push Cissnei over the edge. She groaned and arched her hips against his hand.

"Say yes," he breathed unsteadily, "You know you want to."

"Yes," she gasped.

"C'mon," he said.

"Where?"

"I don't care. Your room?"

"Yes."

Holding onto each other, they somehow made their way out of the dining room and through the empty lobby, and half-fell, half-stumbled up the stairs. Reno began unbuckling Cissnei's belt as she felt in her pocket for the key. "Quick," he said. "I'm trying," she snapped. Twice she dropped it. "God," he groaned, "Let me." Finally they got the door unlocked, and pushed and pulled each other inside, pawing at one another's trousers. "Shut the door," Cissnei panted. He slammed it shut with his foot, and they fell together onto the floor.

It was over in less than a minute. Cissnei thrashed in his arms and yelled obscenities he would have sworn even she did not know. His own orgasm was so violent that he blacked out for a second and collapsed on top of her, coming to when his forehead struck the floor with a sharp crack. Spent, dazed, they lay tangled together for several minutes, trying to catch their breaths.

Cissnei was the first to move. Turning her head away from him, she folded her arm over her eyes. "Oh, shit," she exclaimed, half laughing, half-groaning. "Now we've fucking done it."

Reno sat up, struggling with the suit trousers tangled around his ankles. "I've still got my boots on," he laughed, and pulled them off; the knife fell out of his left boot and spun under the bed. Kicking his legs free of the trousers, it took him only a few moment to strip off his socks and his jacket, unbuckle his two shoulder holsters, and pull his shirt inside out over his head. Last of all he took off his goggles and laid them to one side. Naked, he sat cross-legged on the floor, and reached across to touch Cissnei's shoulder.

"Hey," he said.

She rolled her head towards him, looked up and down his lithe paleness, all bone and sinew and hard, slender muscle. Eyes like a drowsy cat's. Hair like a crazy firework. A small smile touched her lips. "Hey, yourself," she murmured. "You're kind of hot, you know that? For a skinny-ass guy."

"You look ridiculous in that suit," he said tenderly. "Come here."

She crawled over to him on her hands and knees and sat herself in his lap, face to face, her long legs straddling his waist. With one hand he tugged at the knot of her tie. "It's a long time since I've done _this," _he laughed, pulling it loose and looping it over her head. His other hand slipped the jacket from her shoulders, balled it up, and threw it into a corner. Cissnei's own hands were busy unbuttoning her shirt. She was having a little trouble with the task; her fingers were beginning to tremble again.

"That's better," he said, when she too was naked. Her auburn hair fell to her shoulders in a mess of tangles. She was smooth and lean and strong, with small high breasts and a belly like the curve of an ivory spoon. "You're pretty hot yourself," he told her, "For a chick with no ass at all."

Taking her face between his hands, he kissed her on the mouth for the first time, long and deep and hard, until they were both breathless and broke away gasping for air.

"Now, this time," he said hoarsely, running a hand down her quivering flank., "Don't rush me."

.

Next day Reno was the first to wake. Late afternoon sunlight was slanting through the drawn curtains. Cissnei lay pressed tightly against him in the narrow bed, her head burrowed into his armpit, her curls tickling his nose. A smile curved her lips.

_Last night I dreamed of you…_

For a while he lay there quietly, watching her breathe. A strand of hair was caught in the corner of her mouth. He pulled it loose. She sighed, and snuggled down more deeply into sleep.

…_I was sorry to wake up._

He was only twenty-two years old, but he had been a Turk long enough to know that no kind of happiness was permanent. You had to take what you could get, while you could get it. Live in the moment, and all that. For now the thing was to keep the office off their backs. Planting a kiss on Cissnei's messy parting, he eased himself out from under her and searched around the room until he found his suit trousers. Three missed calls – they'd slept right through them – and a dozen text messages, all from Tseng. Reno was pondering whether he could get away with texting Tseng back, when the phone rang loudly in his hand, making him jump.

Tseng got straight to the point. "Why haven't you returned my calls?"

"I – uh – I left my phone in my room –" Reno kept his voice down, not wanting to wake her. "Sorry, Boss."

"I called the Manager at the reactor. He seems to be unaware of your presence in Nibelheim. Then I had to call the innkeeper." Tseng's tone dropped ten degrees, from merely cold to frostbitten. "He told me you've been _sleeping all day_."

_Shit, shit_. _Think fast, Reno. _"Not me, Boss. Ciss. She, uh – she got food poisoning. Rabbit stew. Awful crap. I didn't touch it. I had to stay up all night looking after her. Man, you should have seen her hurl. I thought she was going to chuck up her own kidneys – "

"All right, thank you, Reno. I get the picture. How is she now?"

"Oh, she's fine. She's, uh, sleeping. I'll see if I can get her to eat something later, and then we should be good to go tomorrow."

"All right. Call me in the morning. And remember time is of the essence. If Nibelheim's a dead end, we need to know that as soon as possible."

"Understood, Boss. Will do."

Tseng hung up. Reno turned back to the bed and saw that Cissnei was awake, smothering her laughter behind her hands. Her eyes danced. "Food poisoning, huh? Did he believe you?"

"Ciss, when it comes to lying, you are looking at a certified genius."

"Tseng's no fool, you know."

"Yeah, but he kind of assumes we're all like him. He's never broken a rule in his life, and the only thing that would keep him from his mission would be if he was too sick to move. So, yeah, I think he bought it."

"Good," Cissnei smiled.

The tense aggression that had filled her these last few days was gone. Her eyes had lost their edginess. She looked happy and at peace. _I did that, _thought Reno. _I put that smile on her face…._

"Oh, Reno, just look at you," she chided. "I can count every one of your ribs. What am I going to do with you?" She sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. He made a move towards her, but she laughed and shook her head. "First things first. Let's get you something to eat. I'm not having you faint on me. And after all that _food poisoning_, I'm starving."

She took a fresh suit and shirt out of her suitcase. Reno put on the clothes he'd been wearing yesterday. Barefoot, they went down the stairs to the front desk, and rang the bell for the innkeeper.

"So, you're up at last," said the man, coming in from the back room. "Are you two here on holiday, then? Nice romantic getaway. By the way, someone called asking about you – "

"I know," Reno interrupted. "Unfortunately, my colleague here was very sick last night and neither of us got much sleep. If anyone asks, you can tell them that. And if anyone else calls for us, tell them we're out." Reaching into his jacket, Reno took out his wallet, counted off five hundred-gil notes, and laid them on the counter. "Out _working_," he added.

"No problem," nodded the innkeeper. It wasn't often that Turks came prowling round these parts, but he'd heard enough about them to know he'd just struck it lucky: a bribe was infinitely preferable to a threat.

"Have someone bring us up some sandwiches on a tray," said Reno.

"And a bottle of your best wine," added Cissnei.

"You can leave it outside the door," Reno told him. "Just knock."

.

Halfway through the following day Reno was sitting up in bed smoking a cigarette, and Cissnei was dozing, her head pillowed against his bare thigh, when she suddenly opened her eyes and said, "You know, we really should go to the reactor tomorrow."

"OK," he said. "We'll get up early and walk there."

The next day they got up some time after noon, and set off at around four o'clock. Although they told each other they were heading for the reactor, both knew they had no intention of going there. They did not even bother to wear their guns. Their feet found a path which took them around the side of the old Shinra mansion, through a walled herb garden run to seed and weeds, and into a hillside forest of pine trees, where the fallen needles made a carpet under their feet. Cissnei picked an armful of mushrooms; Reno made a fire. They baked her mushrooms on hot stones and ate them, burning their tongues, taking bites between kisses, until the kisses grew hotter and the mushrooms were forgotten.

"Do you think anyone saw us?" Cissnei giggled, as they wandered slowly back to the inn in the moonlight.

"Don't know," Reno grinned, his teeth a flash of white. "And don't really care."

.

On the evening of the fourth day, Cissnei said, "We can't stall Tseng forever. He'll get suspicious soon. We need to do something that looks like work. Why don't we go check out the old mansion tomorrow?"

"Whatever you want," he replied, running his finger down the delicate undulations of her spine.

She twisted under his hand. "You know what I want," she smiled, pulling his mouth down to hers.

.

Mid-morning of the fifth day found them standing fully dressed and armed outside the iron-bound doors of the mansion. "Is it locked?" she asked.

Reno gave the door a push. It swung open, squealing on rusty hinges. They stepped over the threshold into the stone-flagged hall. The first thing Reno noticed was the light – white, dusty light, falling down on them through smeared panes of leaded glass. A wide wooden staircase curved upwards in front of them, rising to a landing that stretched the width of the hall. More stairs went up from the landing to a second-floor hallway bridging the east and west wings. Reno's gaze kept travelling upwards until it reached the ceiling, three stories over his head, and the cobwebbed chandelier that hung there.

"Haunted house, huh?" said Cissnei. "Come on, Red, let's see if we can find any ghosts."

Their crepe soled Turk boots made no sound as they trod across the flagstones. But when Reno put his foot on the lowest step of the stairs, it creaked, and at once four curious creatures, like pallid, skirted pumpkins with blank, dorky faces, flew from under the stairs and hovered in the air above them. Cissnei nearly jumped out of her skin. "Ghosts!" she screamed.

Reno had already pulled out his gun. "They're monsters," he said. "Just shoot them."

Four bullets dispatched the creatures. Cissnei holstered her gun and asked, "Do you think there's any more?"

"What? 'Ooo, ghosts'?" he teased.

She punched his arm. "You – shut up."

Over by the window she found a letter. "What's it say?" asked Reno. "It's hard to read," she answered. "It must be decades old. The paper's so dry it's crumbling, and the ink's faded. Something about a nosy Turk in the basement?"

"Hey, maybe it means the Chief. He probably worked here when he was young. When the lab was still up and running."

"And something about a game, I think."

"Hide and seek," Reno grimaced, looking around at the flyblown windows, the peeling wallpaper, the balding carpet.

Cissnei let the paper fall from her hand. "No one's hiding here now," she said. "This house is…. dead. Don't you feel it? I think we're on a wild goose chase."

"Still, we'd better look around now we're here. You take that corridor on the left, and I'll check out the rooms on the right. Meet me back here in twenty minutes."

"Roger."

The first door took him along a corridor to a parlour over-furnished in the style of half a century ago: big table, armchairs, a thick rug on the floor, and tall dark bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes. One of the books lay open on the table, next to a teacup in a saucer. Dust covered everything.

Behind the second door he found two more pumpkin monsters floating in the middle of an old-fashioned kitchen. He shot them, had a look at the pot-bellied coal range, tried the tap in the deep porcelain sink (it rattled, but no water came out), and went through a further door into a larder stacked with crates. Here, too, the layers of dust had lain undisturbed for years.

He went round the walls, tapping them with the butt of his EMR, but they were solid. No secret passageways. He paused for a second when he heard three gunshots, then realised that Cissnei had probably come across more of the monsters.

Well, his side of the house had drawn a blank: there was no sign of any human activity, and nowhere for any human to hide. He went back to the hall. From a far doorway the sound of an out-of-tune piano being played very badly reached his ears. He followed the music, and came into a sunlit ballroom, its windows draped with yellowing muslin curtains. A black grand piano stood in the right corner. Cissnei was poking at its keys with two fingers, playing chopsticks.

To his left was a round table. Reno sat down in one of the chairs, put his feet up on the white tablecloth, and lit a cigarette.

"Why'd they build this mansion here anyway?" he wondered. "Is this, like, the Shinra ancestral pile? How old do you reckon it is, Ciss?"

"Centuries," she said. "I'm guessing they bought it when they built the reactor. It was probably company housing for the scientists."

"Yeah," said Reno, thinking of the books piled everywhere. "That stands to reason. Hey, Ciss?"

"Uh-huh?" she replied, making a chord with middle C, E and G.

"You must have got to know Lazard pretty well, all that time you worked with him."

"Uh-huh," she said guardedly, in a tone that clearly wondered, _where is this leading?_

"Why d'you think he did it? Why'd he turn on Shinra? I know SOLDIER's in a mess, but it's not like he was ever going to have to take the rap for it, being the Old Man's son and everything. I would have thought he had a pretty cushy number. Why'd he throw it all away?"

"He hates his father," she said, fingering another chord, black notes mixed with white, a minor key.

"That makes two of them. And Rufus hates Lazard."

"And Lazard hates Rufus," Cissnei finished. "Happy families."

"So what's his plan, him and Hollander?"

"I have no idea," she said, closing the piano.

"Where do you think he is, really?"

"I can't even begin to guess. Lazard plays his cards very close to his chest. He was always… uncomfortable with his position. Did you ever read any of those emails he used to send round? The ones about the – " her fingers made air-quotes – "dark shadows of Shinra? I couldn't help poking fun of them. They were just begging to be spoofed…." She trailed off. A faraway look came into her eyes. In a different tone of voice, she added, " Zack would get so annoyed. He took them so seriously… "

Reno wasn't having any of that. Crushing the half-smoked cigarette underfoot, he loped across to the piano, bent down, and kissed her long and hard, stroking her neck and her breasts until she put her arms around him with a sigh and began to return his kiss with equal enthusiasm.

Later, as they were putting their clothes back on, he said, "I don't want to hear about the past, OK, Ciss? To me it doesn't matter."

"You brought the subject up."

"Yeah, well…. You're here with me now. That's all I care about."

"Yes," she said, "I am. Let's go take a look around upstairs."

.

Room with a locked safe. Reno spent fifteen minutes trying to crack the combination. "Forget it," said Cissnei at last. "If he's hiding in there, he'll have suffocated by now."

Reno gave the safe a parting kick, and they went back to the corridor.

.

Round greenhouse room. Some of the pots contained nothing but earth; others held flourishing overgrown cacti in danger of snapping under the weight of their own top-heaviness. Leaf skeletons and mice droppings lay scattered across the floor.

"This room smells of death," said Cissnei. "Let's leave."

.

Room with a wardrobe, three carved wooden beds, and a thin carpet patterned in cream and brown. Reno opened the wardrobe and found a black SOLDIER uniform. Hastily he pushed it out of sight and closed the door. "Nothing in here," he said.

She was standing by the window with her arms crossed, looking down at the pine woods. He came over and put his hands up under her shirt, nuzzling her hair. "Three beds," he murmured in her ear. "Which one d'you want to try first?"

.

Several hours later, they stood in a small back room containing a table, a chair, and more bookcases. Reno did his routine, going round each wall and tapping it. "Nothing."

"Wild goose chase, I'm telling you," said Cissnei.

They passed through some sort of antechamber into what was clearly the master bedroom, with a big double bed pushed under the windows. Sunset filled the room with a burning light. Reno threw himself onto the bed's green and red checked coverlet, folding his arms behind his head.

"You know what we should do, Ciss?" he said. "We should make love in every room in this house."

"Is that what we've been doing?" she murmured, as if to herself.

He heard her; she probably meant that he should. But he wasn't ready to have this conversation yet. So he pretended he'd heard nothing, and held out his hand for her to join him.

Cissnei shook her head and laughed. "You are indefatigable."

"What's that mean?"

She came to sit beside him. "Don't you ever wear out?"

"Dunno," he grinned, unzipping her trousers, "But it's fun trying."

.

"There's a door here," she said later, standing by the curved stone wall at the other end of the room. "Damn. It's locked."

"I can pick that. Got a hairpin?"

"Reno. Do I look like the kind of girl who wears hairpins?"

"Ah," he laughed. "Good point." Taking his army knife from his back pocket, he inserted the pick in the lock and worried it gently from side to side until he felt the pins lift. The door slid back, revealing a stone staircase spiralling down into a well of darkness.

The sun had set; the colours of day were fading fast. They took out their flashlights and began the steep descent, keeping their right hands on the wall to stay oriented. Halfway down, Cissnei looked over her shoulder at him and said, "Are we being incredibly stupid, climbing down to a secret crypt in a haunted house just as night falls?"

"The old lab's down here. We have to check it out."

At the bottom of the staircase was a cellar, with a ladder disappearing into a hole. The two Turks climbed down the ladder and found themselves in a tunnel roughly carved from the living rock, just tall enough to stand up in. Dangling lengths of chains had been riveted to the rock face. Several broken skeletons lay scattered along the tunnel floor. Reno tripped over a yellowed thigh bone and kicked it aside.

"Well," he said, "_These _guys aren't Shinra."

"They lived centuries ago," Cissnei opined. "Another age."

To their left they found an arched wooden door. Reno tapped on it, then pushed it open a crack, shining his flashlight inside. Cissnei craned her neck to see. It was a small room like a wine cellar, musty and cold. Heaps of skulls had been piled in the corners. In the centre of the room were five coffins.

"I don't care if Lazard _is_ hiding in one of those things," Cissnei shuddered. "I am not going in there. Shut the door, Reno, quick. Let's finish searching the facility and then let's get the hell out of here."

They passed through an octagonal room where piles of books had been left stacked carelessly on the floor. All sorts of scientific equipment - bunsen burners, retorts, flasks, rubber tubes, petrie dishes – were gathering dust on shelves. From here the passage led to a library, and on from the library to a room that felt jarringly modern after so much dust and lace and antiquity. It had a stone floor and bare brick walls, several examination tables, a bank of outdated computers, various mystery machines, and six specimen tanks of the kind Reno recognised all too well. Hojo had the same tanks in his labs on the 67th floor; AVALANCHE had had them at their base near Icicle Inn.

He and Cissnei made a careful search, but found nothing.

"Total waste of time," said Cissnei. "Still, I suppose we had to tick it off our list. But Lazard's really too smart to come here. It was bound to be the first place we'd look."

She took out her phone.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm calling the manager at the reactor, asking him to send us down some chocobos tomorrow. We have to go there sooner or later. And Reno, listen," she put a hand on his arm. "Don't take this the wrong way, but while we're there, could you please, please, please keep your hands off me? It's not that I don't like it," she added quickly. "But we need to try to be a bit more discrete. You don't want to ruin everything, do you?"

.

In the evening of the following day, they had a fight.

They'd gone up to the reactor, talked to the staff, and discovered nothing of any use. Constrained by the classified nature of their investigation, they were unable to refer to Lazard by name or show his photo to the people they questioned, and so had to confine themselves to a general inquiry. They were told that monster sightings had gone up significantly since the previous year (the Manager showed them his bar charts) and that the creatures were becoming bolder, but as for any suggestion that unauthorized human personnel might have gained entrance to the facility – absolutely not. The rest of the workers told the same story.

Tired at the end of this long, unproductive day, they rode back to the inn without talking much. Reno was just stepping out of the bath and wrapping a towel around his waist when Cissnei's phone rang.

"Hey, Boss, how are you?" she said. "Yes, I'm fine now, thank you. Yes we did. Today. No, nothing, just a dead end. That's what we think. Yes, if anything comes to me, I'll tell you. Yes, Reno's fine. Well, you know him, sir. He doesn't account to me for his movements. Actually, between you and me," she lowered her voice to a fake whisper, "I think he might have a girl."

"What?" cried Reno. "What are you doing?"

Cissnei shushed him with a frown. "Yes, that's him, sir. He just came in. Tomorrow. I'll tell him. Understood. See you then. Bye, Boss."

She clicked the phone shut, and turned to Reno. "He wants us back in Midgar tomorrow."

"Fuck," he snarled, balling his fists. "Fuck. Shit."

"It's been a week. We've been lucky to have that much."

He grabbed her hand. "Fuck them. Let's run away."

"What?"

"If AVALANCHE can hide, so can we."

She snatched her hand back. "Don't be so stupid. I don't want to spend the rest of my life in hiding. I _like_ my job. And what about you, what else could you do? Come on, don't say such idiotic things. We have to be sensible."

"You don't care," he accused her.

"Of course I care! How would flapping my hands and acting like I've just been shot in the head show I care? We need a plan, fuckwit. I'm trying to think, is all."

He ran his hands through his hair. "And what the hell was that shit to Tseng? 'Oh, you know Reno. Oh, I think he has a girl.' Is that part of your plan?"

"Yeah, actually, it is."

"We're just going to walk in and tell him? Suicide mission?"

"No. We can't go back together. I'll go back. You'll have to stay here."

"Oh yeah, brilliant. 'You know Reno, he's such an idiot he got lost on his way from the inn to the chopper'. Tseng'll buy that. Love it already."

Cissnei was also beginning to get angry. "Look, shut up," she snapped. "We can't go back together. I can't walk into that office with you tomorrow like nothing's happened. I can't do it. One of us has to stay behind and it makes more sense if it's you. That's why I told him you've got a girl. I'll say you stayed behind to take some leave and be with her. He'll believe that."

Reno shook his head. "Why me and not you? You don't trust me not to do something stupid, is that it?"

"No! - But I've set you up for it now, so it has to be you."

"Fucking hell," he breathed. "You've got the whole thing planned out, haven't you? How long have those little wheels in your mind been turning?"

"One of us had to come up with something to cover our butts. And I guess it had to be the one who doesn't think with their _dick_," she spat.

"I didn't hear you complaining earlier." He folded his arms. "I'm not doing it, Ciss. I'm not letting you go back there on your own. No way. Whatever we do, we do it together."

"Just back the fuck off, Reno, can't you?" she exclaimed. "Just – stop crowding me! Listen! Listen to me! Ever since I came home you've been acting like you own me. You don't own me. Nobody owns me. How can we go back to the office together when you can't keep your hands off me? How long would it be before everyone knows? Before the Chief finds out? You've got to back off a little. Sometimes you make me feel like I can't breathe. Please – try to understand. I just – I just need some space. I need to be alone for a while. I've been alone so much this last year, I…. "

He was trying to listen to her, he really was. He was trying as hard as he could to understand what she was saying. But it came down to this one thing: she wanted to go, and she didn't want him to go with her.

"… Being with you is so intense," she went on. "I'm getting worn out. I need some time alone. I need to go back to Midgar and have some space to think, so I can work out how to manage this. There might be a way, if we take it slowly…"

He couldn't force her to stay. It wasn't his style. And she'd fight him if he tried: she'd claw her way loose.

"Please," she said softly, coming from behind to put her arms around his waist. She laid her head between his shoulder-blades and held him tight. "Please, please, believe that I know best. Let me do this the way I want. Please."

He had to let her go, and hope.

"Please, Reno," she kissed his jaw. "Please," she kissed his ear, "Please," she murmured, nibbling his neck. "You have to trust me. It'll all be OK. Just trust me." She ran her hands along the hard flatness of his stomach, and slid them down under his towel, her teeth gently biting his shoulder.

He would have done anything for her then. Killed. Died. Anything.

.

In the moonlight her skin had a pearly sheen. He walked his fingers up her right arm, along the line of her shoulder, and down her slim back to the two little dimples, like thumbprints in cream, denting the flesh just above each buttock.

"You're so beautiful," he said.

"I know I am," she replied, a note of something like sadness, or wryness, or perhaps simply tiredness, in her voice. "It's my job."

"Hey, big head," he slapped her bottom. "Don't get me wrong. It's not like you're _the_ most gorgeous chick I've ever had."

"Oh really?" she smiled. "So who was she, then?"

"Her name was, uh, Amanda. Yeah. Amanda. Whoa! She had legs that went up to her armpits and tits like melons."

"Mmm," Cissnei giggled. "She sounds…well-proportioned."

He laughed at that, throwing himself down beside her, and pushed her hair away to look closely into her face. Huge golden eyes fringed with dark lashes; full-lipped mouth; narrow delicate nose; her face itself a serene oval, the loveliest thing on the planet. When he was with her, nothing else mattered. Without her, life was empty.

_So this is what it means_, he realized in astonishment. _It means everything._

"Cissnei," he said slowly, "I have to tell you something."

"What?" she murmured. She was nearly asleep.

"What I said before, that I didn't love you? It was a lie. I do love you."

"I know." Stretching out a languid arm, she took hold of his hand, brought it to her mouth and kissed it. "I love you too, Red. Whatever happens, remember that."

.

They rose at dawn, showered, dressed, checked out, and carried their luggage to the helicopter. Cissnei said, "Are you sure you want me to take you to Rocket Town?"

"I don't want to stay here without you. It'll be easy to get a plane or something from Rocket Town. And nobody'll know me. I've never been there."

"I have," she said. "I was there for a while earlier this year. You should look up my friend, Cid Highwind."

"The fighter pilot?"

"He's an astronaut in training now. I think you two would have a lot in common."

The rocket itself was visible from miles away; they saw it as soon as they came over the mountain ridge, thrusting up into the sky like a –

"Big bloody dick," said Cissnei. "Man penetrates space. The ultimate orgasm."

"Hey, cool it," said Reno. "A guy's allowed to dream."

She set him down in a field outside the town. "I'll call you!" she shouted over the rotors. "It'll just be a couple of days! Don't fret!"

The helicopter leapt back into the air and whoop-whooped away, leaving Reno feeling more at a loss – more lost – than he could ever remember being. He had no chopper…he had no partner…he was wearing civvies…. All he had to remind him of himself were the guns under his armpits and the goggles on his brow. The mag-rod was stowed in his suitcase. He and Cissnei had agreed that he should lie low until she told him it was safe to return to Midgar…

If that day ever came. He'd done a lot of things in his time to wind Tseng up, but he'd never pulled a stunt like this before, refusing a direct order to return to HQ. That was right up there in Charlie's league. Unfortunately, unlike Charlie, he, Reno, wasn't a legend in his own time.

He lugged his suitcase into town and checked in at the inn. The bar seemed quiet. He went across the road and wasted time in the gun shop for a while, then took a stroll through the town to see what it had to offer. The old town itself was not much more than a few buildings gathered around a square; the real business of Rocket Town took place in the fields beyond, where rows of temporary staff housing had sprung up around the launch site, looking like cardboard boxes mushrooming in the grass. The action was probably livelier over there, and a month ago Reno would have hurried to check it out. Now he just wasn't interested. Bored, he scuffed his way back to the inn, and settled down in the TV lounge to watch re-runs of old comedies.

Round about five pm, pretty much bang on the time Reno had predicted, Tseng called.

"Just where the hell are you, Reno?"

"Taking a holiday. Ciss get back OK?"

"You have no more holiday entitlement."

"What about last year's – "

"It doesn't roll over. I'm warning you, I can't overlook this. You are exposing yourself to the most severe disciplinary measures – "

"Oh, no, the signal's going – You're breaking up – "

Reno turned his phone off. Then, feeling stupid, he turned it back on. How could Ciss call him if his phone was off? It started ringing again, but caller ID showed it was Tseng. The Boss didn't give up easily. He kept on calling every five minutes for about an hour, and Reno kept on resisting the urge to answer. Finally, his phone fell silent.

Soon afterwards, Cissnei called. "How are you, Reno? Are you OK?" Her voice was a whisper.

"Where are you, Ciss?"

"In the girls' toilet. Tseng's so angry. He thinks I'm in cahoots with you."

"Like you said, he's no fool."

"It's skin of our teeth time. Listen, I wouldn't put it past him to trace my calls, so I'm not going to call you for a couple of days."

"Ciss, no – "

"You should disable your phone, too. Pull the battery out."

"But what if – "

"I've got to go. Reno, please don't worry. It'll all work out. Just look after yourself. _Eat_."

"But Ciss – "

She hesitated. "Be strong, OK? For me." And she hung up.

That night he missed her so badly he couldn't sleep. In the middle of the night he went down to the bar. It was locked, so he broke in. Bourbon had lost some of its potency for him, but vodka would still do the trick. He helped himself to a bottle from under the counter and went back to his room. Eventually, as dawn was breaking, he fell into a restless doze.

When the theft was discovered he had to pay double just to get them off his case, but he didn't really care.

By the third day he was so bored that he wandered back to the rocket site and lay down in the meadow to watch the crew work. He'd been there for a couple of hours when he saw a tall man come striding across the grass, his ragged crew-cut of blond hair held back by a pair of goggles very like Reno's own. As the man came closer Reno could see he was in his late thirties, with a lean, weather-beaten face, and hawk eyes.

"Hey, you," the man shouted. "Your name Reno, by any chance?"

Reno sat up. "No."

"Are you sure? 'Coz I just got a call from HQ asking if I'd seen some skinny red-head dude with tattoos on his cheeks and goggles, and you kind of fit the bill."

"I know who you mean," said Reno. "That one's my twin brother."

The man was standing over him now, and he was not amused. "Don't fuck with me. D'you take me for a fool?"

"No." Reno got to his feet, brushing the grass from his jeans. "You're Cid Highwind, aren't you? I'm a friend of Cissnei's."

Cid's stubbled cheeks broke into a smile. "That livin' doll! How is she?"

"She – she's good. She says hi."

"Man, she sure set this place on fire. Had half the base crazy about her. Wasn't interested in any of them, though. I reckon she was pining away for some sweetheart back in Midgar. Good thing too. She's the kind of broad guys'll kill each other over, and I need more trouble here like I need a hole in my fucking head. So, anyway, you a Turk too, not-Reno?"

"I'm on holiday."

"Oh, I get it. Office chasing you to cut your leave short? Fuckin' slave-drivers, ain't they? Don't worry, your secret's safe with me. Any friend of Cissnei's is a friend of mine. Hey – " he gestured at the goggles. "You a pilot?"

"Helicopters."

"The Shinra mule," Cid spat into the grass. "No offense, but if you want to see a real classy thoroughbred you need to come take a look at the airship I'm building out back…."

Cissnei was right: Cid was an easy guy to get along with. He showed Reno all over the Highwind, and then took him on a tour of the rocket site, and by the end of the day Reno was happily at work in the bowels of the boosters, wiring fuses and testing connections. It felt good to be busy. The aching longing for Cissnei that threatened to consume him could be held at bay as long as he had something, anything, to keep his mind occupied. But at night the emptiness of his arms, the coldness of the sheets, the craving he felt for the smell of her hair and the touch of her skin, made him fear he was losing his mind.

He had to trust her.

He understood why she couldn't call. Not on her own phone. But she could have borrowed a friend's phone and called the inn. She could have borrowed Rude's phone, or Rosalind's.

He needed to stop thinking like that.

He tried calling her on the inn's phone, but her phone was out of order.

He had to trust her, or he would go insane.

On the fifth day Cid came and squatted down beside him where he was working on the back-up ignition motors. "Everything OK, not-Reno?" he asked.

"Sure. Why?"

"You look… kinda wild-eyed, sometimes. Here, I got somethin' for you. Came in the internal mailbag." Cid reached into his back pocket and took out a postcard of the Shinra Tower.

Reno began to shake.

"Thing is," said Cid, "I think your name _is_ Reno, because this is addressed to Reno, care of me, and this here sure looks like you, don't it?" Holding the card between forefinger and thumb Cid turned it round to show Reno the cartoon chibi she had drawn in red ink: tattoos, goggles, spikes of hair sprouting every which way, heavy-lidded almond eyes.

Under it she'd written, _I never lied to you_.

He couldn't breathe. No – he was going to throw up. Pushing Cid out of the way, he staggered blindly from the rocket into the dazzle of daylight, and vomited onto the grass. Then he fell to his knees, gasping.

Cid had come after him, followed by a couple of the technicians. "Get him some water, goddamit," he heard Cid snap at one of them.

What was he going to do? He felt like he was flying apart in a hundred different directions. _I never lied to you_. She must have said something, something that would make sense of everything, if only he could remember it. What was it, then? What had he missed? What truth had he failed to hear?

_Don't feel. Feeling hurts. Think. Think._

_ Call Tseng._

He sat back on his heels, pulled out his phone, and kept hitting the menu button, unable to grasp why it wouldn't work.

Cid took it out of his hands. "Battery's gone. Use mine. What's the number?"

"HQ. Extension 481."

He could hear the phone ringing in Cid's hands, and then Tseng's voice, tinny with distance. "Hullo, who is – "

"Got someone for you," said Cid before passing the phone over.

"Boss – "

"Reno? Reno, is that you? Whose number is this? Reno? Are you all right?"

Reno sucked air deep into his lungs. His head cleared, just a little bit. He said, "Where's Cissnei?"

"You've got some nerve, calling to ask me that. Where are _you_, is more to the point -"

"Rocket Town. Boss, you have to tell me, where is she?"

"What? Cid Highwind told me he hadn't seen you – "

"Please, Boss, just tell me – "

"What the hell are you doing in Rocket Town? No – don't even bother to answer that, you'll only spin me some ludicrous farrago of nonsense. Just get yourself back here – "

"For fuck's sake, Tseng," Reno exploded, "Just fucking answer my fucking question for fucking once. Where the fuck is she? Is she with Zack Fair?"

For a moment it seemed as if the other end of the line had gone dead.

"I'm not going to discuss this over the phone," said Tseng. "You get back here, and then you can tell me exactly what's been going on and what you know. And if I'm not looking at you with my own two eyes before this day is over, I can promise you, Reno, you will wish you had never been born."

* * *

The hour was closer to dawn than midnight when the plane carrying Reno touched down at the airstrip outside Midgar. Tseng was waiting for him on the runway with a company car. His hard fingers took Reno by the elbow. "Where's your suit?"

"I forgot – "

"You are so far over the line, I don't know where to start." He shoved Reno into the passenger seat. "Get in. And shut up. I'm too angry to talk to you right now."

"Just tell me, where's Cissnei?"

"I said no talking."

"You don't understand. This can't wait. " Reno pressed both hands to his head. "Zack's not in Midgar right now, is he? I remember now. He's gone on furlough. Is that where she is? She's with him, isn't she?"

"I'm warning you - "

"Do you even know where she is?"

"You have no right to question me."

In desperation, barely realizing what he was doing, Reno pulled out his gun and pointed it at Tseng's head. His hands were shaking so badly he couldn't hold it steady. Tseng merely glanced at him, gave his brief bark of a laugh, and returned his attention to the highway unfurling in their headlights. After a moment he said, "Put it away, Reno. Before you have an accident. "

Reno let the gun fall into his lap. Had he really just threatened to shoot _the Boss_? He must be out of his mind. That must be why he felt so dizzy. All the familiar things around him looked strange, wrong: the road, the gun, Tseng's face, his own hands. They appeared at once painfully sharp and far away, as if he was looking at them through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars.

"All right," said Tseng, in a tone of voice suggesting a sudden and decisive change of mind, "To stop you doing anything else so stupid, I can tell you that yes, Zack Fair is on furlough in Costa, and yes, she's with him. I sent her there to keep an eye on him, in case Lazard tries to make contact. Now, you tell me why that's a problem."

"God," Reno breathed out, "You don't know?"

Was it possible? Yet Tseng was sitting there so calmly, one hand on the steering wheel, as if nothing Reno might say could surprise him. "What exactly is it that you think I don't know?" he asked.

Reno opened his mouth. The words wouldn't come. Tensing his muscles, he dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands as hard as he could. The pain helped a little. He tried again. "Cissnei's in love with Zack. She's gone to try to get him back."

This must have been what Tseng had been expecting him to say, because he didn't miss a beat as he replied, "I'm afraid you've allowed your jealousy to cloud your judgement. You are wrong. On both counts."

He sounded so sure.

Reno wasn't sure of anything any more. Except this one thing, the thing he'd seen with his own eyes. The truth he'd had from her mouth. "I'm not wrong. Fuck it, Tseng, you _know_ I'm not wrong - you and the Chief are the ones who set her up for it in the first place. You sent her off to SOLDIER to get inside Zack's pants so he'd tell her what he knew about Angeal and Genesis. You _know_ she fell in love with him. That's why the Chief pulled her from the mission."

"Who told you that?" asked Tseng.

"Nobody _told_ me. It was obvious."

"You know, Reno, I've warned you before not to speculate about other Turks' missions. I told you it would get you into trouble. I wish you had listened to me."

"I'm not wrong," Reno almost shouted.

"Listen to me. Cissnei was never in a relationship with Zack Fair. And we weren't the ones who pulled her from the mission. Lazard asked us to take her away."

"What? Why? Wasn't he the one who wanted her in the first place?"

"Well, naturally. She is very beautiful."

At these words, it seemed to Reno as if the world took a great lurch sideways.

His dizziness intensified. "What - what do you mean?"

"Well…. I suppose there's no harm in telling you now. The Commander started having suspicions about Director Lazard several years ago, even before Genesis and Angeal defected. But Lazard's very cautious. Very good at hiding things. Including himself, it would now appear. So we needed to get someone inside his guard. The Commander came up with the idea of the Turk-SOLDIER liaison officer. We did, in fact, need someone in that position. Our intention was to let Lazard choose whomever he wanted. He chose Cissnei. _He_ was the one who put her on to Zack."

"Wait – what?" Reno's hands clenched. "I don't understand what you're saying."

"A simple double-bluff. Lazard wanted to keep his private life hidden from the Old Man. He encouraged Cissnei to develop the appearance of a relationship with Zack as a smokescreen to conceal her relationship with him."

Momentarily robbed of speech, Reno could only stare at his boss in disbelief. Did Tseng actually think that this claptrap he was spewing with such confidence was _true_?

_Was_ it true?

"She was acting under our instructions," Tseng went on. "We told her to cooperate with whatever Lazard wanted. For a while it seemed to be working. But he trusted nobody, and he knew where her true loyalties lay. In the end, he couldn't bring himself to open up to her. She wasn't making any progress, and she pushed a little too… clumsily. He asked us to take her away."

Reno's skull hurt. Like it was cracking apart. He clutched his head. "Wait," he said. His guts had started churning again, making it hard for him to think clearly. "Let me get this straight. Are you saying – she was screwing _both_ of them?"

Tseng shook his head. "No. Only Lazard. Not Zack – "

"Are you blind, Tseng? Of course she was screwing Zack. She was _in love_ with Zack. She still is. God. No wonder Director Lazard didn't find her performance convincing."

Reno's vehemence gave Tseng pause. When he next spoke, a note of uncertainty had come into his voice. "How do you know this?"

"Because she _told_ me. She said he was the love of her life. He broke her heart when he dumped her for Aerith Gainsborough. And now she's alone with him in Costa. And _you_ sent her there. Boss, you are a fucking idiot."

For a few moments the only sounds in the car were the smooth hum of the engine and the hiss of the tires on the tarmac.

"Both of them," said Reno, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes.

He couldn't stop picturing their hands. The white gloves. The black gloves. Her pearly skin.

"Oh God. Stop the car. I think I'm going to be sick."

Tseng pulled over. At this dark hour, the highway was empty. Reno flung open the door, fell into the roadway, and retched. His empty stomach brought up nothing but strings of bile: bitterness filled his mouth.

Tseng got out of the car and walked around to stand beside him. The mako streetlamp above their heads bathed them both in its shadowless glare.

"You two… weren't working in Nibelheim," Tseng stated.

Reno hawked, spat, sat back on his heels. "You just worked that out?"

"Your feelings are obvious, of course. I was remiss not to see it before. But I hadn't realized she – reciprocated."

"She used me," Reno gasped, his stomach heaving again.

Tseng went to the car, got a bottle of water, opened it, and gave it to Reno. Reno swilled his mouth out, then drank in noisy gulps.

Tseng said, cruelly, "Are you losing your touch, Reno?"

"Don't – "

"She screwed you over, eh?"

"Shut up."

"I believed her, you know, when she told me you'd stayed behind with a girl. I even sent Rude to Nibelheim to get you. That was probably foolish of me, too. He knows, doesn't he?"

After a moment's hesitation, Reno nodded.

"How long has this been going on?" But Tseng was thinking aloud rather than asking a question, and without waiting for an answer that Reno would not, in any case, have given, he went on, "It can't have been long. And if what you say about Zack is true…. Yes, I see. It makes sense now. Before you went to Nibelheim, I told her to make sure she came back by the end of the week, because we wanted her to go to Costa with Zack Fair. It must have seemed to her like a golden opportunity. But you were in the way, weren't you? You knew too much. And you were too involved. She had to figure out a way to neutralize you before you interfered. And with Roz suddenly out of action, and the Chief assigning you to the Nibelheim mission, everything fell into place. And she actually persuaded you to go and wait for her in Rocket Town." Tseng barked a laugh. "She's a resourceful girl, I'll give her that."

Holding on to the car door, Reno pulled himself to his feet. "You're enjoying this, you bastard."

"Less than you'd think," Tseng replied. "But you brought it on yourself. You know the rules. You chose to ignore them. Get in the car. I'll take you home. You'll be seeing the Commander tomorrow morning."

Reno didn't move. He said, "But Cissnei's still in Costa with Zack Fair."

"Yes. We'll have to bring her back now, but I see no immediate cause for alarm. I trust Zack. What's the worst that could happen? She throws herself at him, and possibly humiliates herself in the process… Which will be painful for her, but hardly a threat to the company."

Reno realized that Tseng still wasn't seeing it.

He could have kept silent. But the desire for revenge had lodged like a hot coal in his throat. He had to spit it out, and he hoped – god, he hoped – it would _burn_ her:

"Don't you get it, Boss? She's gone to Costa to tell him the truth about Aerith Gainsborough."

Tseng froze. In the cold lamplight Reno saw the blood drain from his face. The possibility that Cissnei might do such a thing had obviously never crossed his mind.

"No," said Tseng, "She wouldn't."

"What other ammo's she got? She's probably told him already."

"But - but she knows that would be putting Aerith's life in danger."

"D'you think she gives a fuck? Shit, Tseng, don't you know _anything_ about women?"

Tseng threw his head back and ran a hand over his hair, his eyes searching through the sky as if he might find there something to contradict Reno's certainty that Cissnei had betrayed them both. To the east dawn was a seam of pale light between the clouds and the broken horizon. When Tseng looked back at Reno, he had come to a decision.

"You drive," he said, putting the keys in Reno's hand. "And try to keep your mind on what you're doing."

As soon as they were moving again he took out his phone and made a call. It rang and rang. Nobody answered.

"Cissnei?" said Reno.

"Just drive. And hurry." Tseng dialed another number. "Knox, it's me. I need you to fly with me to Costa. Get up to the pad. I'm calling them now."

Reno said, "I'll fly you."

Tseng ignored him. He called the helipad and ordered them to have a chopper ready to take off in ten minutes.

"I'm going with you," said Reno.

"Put your foot down."

The tires burnt a trail of rubber onto the tarmac as they sped down the ramp into the Shinra building's basement car park. Tseng leapt from the car while it was still moving and sprinted for the stairway that led to the lobby. Reno jumped out, leaving the engine running, and ran after him. The reception area was empty except for a couple of guards. Reno caught up with his boss at the foot of the mezzanine stairs and grabbed his arm. "I said I'm going with you."

"No," said Tseng.

"Yes – "

"Don't make this worse for yourself – "

Reno did not want to fight Tseng. His one thought was to get to Cissnei. Tseng was in his way. He tried to shove him aside. Tseng fell backwards against the wall; his right leg lashed out, kicking Reno in the knees. Reno grabbed onto the banister to steady himself. Coiling back his fist, he aimed for Tseng's nose – but he was wrung out and he'd had nothing to eat all day. He was too slow. Tseng blocked the move with his right forearm and punched Reno hard on the cheekbone. Reno crumpled.

Dazed by the blow, he was only dimly aware of Tseng bending over him. Next thing he knew his face was being turned from side to side, Tseng's ungentle fingers probing for any broken bones.

"You'll be all right," Tseng told him. "You need some food. You need some rest. Go home."

"Home?"

"The Commander expects you in his office at ten. You should clean up first. Get changed."

_Get changed? _wondered Reno. _That's a good one. Wish I could. Change out of this skin I'm in. It's barely holding me together. Can't he see?_

Perhaps Tseng did see. He lingered another moment at Reno's side, rested a gloved hand on his shoulder. When he spoke again, his tone was different, warmer. Almost – compassionate? "Just wait here. I'll send someone down for you."

"No…."

But Tseng was already gone, running up the stairs towards the elevator.

Reno remained slumped where he had fallen. A bruise was forming on his cheek. His face hurt, and he knew it, but he couldn't feel it enough to care. He was hungry and exhausted. Did it matter? Why? Sleep, food, pain: these things were only skin-deep.

Some far away part of his mind registered the sound of the guard's voice saying, "Hey, you there – "

He felt numbed. Punch-drunk.

Stupid. _Stupid_. How could he have been so stupid?

She had used him. And he'd allowed her to. He'd given his fucking _permission_. _Hey, what are friends for_?

"How did you get in here?" The guard's voice was growing louder.

_I dreamed of you. Yes. I wanted you. I never lied. I love you too._

_ Then why did you do this to me? _

"What are you doing? " exclaimed the guard, "Don't touch that – "

_But I told you, I don't love you like that. Not like – him._

A gun fired.

Reno's head jerked up, eyes snapping into focus.

The sound of a revving engine came from the showroom behind the reception. By its tone he knew at once it was the Hardy-Daytona. Next instant, the bike itself burst through the showroom doors and skidded in a circle across the marble floor, slamming against the side of the stairs. There it rested for a moment, shuddering from the vibrations of its weapons-grade engine. Reno got a clear look at the rider – the thief: a whey-faced boy, maybe seventeen or eighteen years old, with a hard mouth and stoned eyes, dressed in zippered black jeans and an old army great-coat.

The guard was leaning against the showroom doorpost, clutching his bleeding gut. "You! Turk! Reno!" he gasped. "He's stealing the bike! Stop him!"

The thief tossed his hair from his eyes, hauled the bike upright, and gunned the engine. It began to move, but not as fast as Reno could move: he calculated the trajectory, crossed the floor, and jumped onto the back of the bike just before it shot through the front door of the Shinra Building, carrying thief and Turk outside into the dawn light.

The thief kicked back with one foot. "Get the fuck off," he snarled. "It's mine."

"I don't think so," said Reno, trying to reach under the kid's arms to grab hold of the controls. The bike careered madly down the road, veering from side to side. They crashed through some garbage cans, caught the edge of one of the lids and bounced into the air.

"You fucker!" screamed the boy. "You'll kill us!"

"Who cares?" said Reno.

Tires squealing, the bike took the corner into Fountain Square at top speed and spun out of control. A few early risers, out for their morning stroll, shrieked and scattered for cover. The boy fell off first; Reno threw himself forward, yanked the wheel around, and hit the brakes. But the bike was going too fast. Reno bailed, landing on his feet just as the bike hit the edge of the fountain. It turned over and crashed into the water, hissing and sparking. Reno was drenched with the spray.

A bullet smacked into the wall behind him. He looked round. The kid had pulled a semi-automatic from his greatcoat and was pointing it, not very accurately, at Reno's head. Again he fired; again, he missed. Reno walked over to him, broke his wrist with a blow, and took the gun. "Did you just try to kill me, bitch?"

The boy's mouth twisted in pain. "Fuck off and die," he wheezed.

"No," said Reno. "You."

He flipped the gun round in his hand, and with its butt cracked the kid a blow to the back of his skull that knocked him to his knees. A second blow laid him flat on the pavement. Too easy. "C'mon," Reno muttered, toeing him in the ribs. "Fight me." The kid groaned and tried to push up on his good arm. "C'mon, bitch," Reno urged him. The boy flailed a fist in Reno's direction, then flopped again, gasping. Reno laughed. "Don't be so weak, bitch."

Turning the boy over, Reno took hold of his coat lapels and dragged him towards the fountain, leaving a thin trail of blood in their wake. He pushed the boy's head into the cold water. The boy's eyes and mouth flew open and he struggled to break free of Reno's grip. Reno took hold of him by the hair and yanked his head up. The boy gagged, spitting out water. His eyes were dark with pain and fear and anger. "Bitch," said Reno again, almost conversationally. "Where'd you get the idea you could fuck with Shinra?

From somewhere the thief found the strength to break loose from Reno's grip long enough to lunge forward and head-butt him. Reno's head snapped back on his spine; his jaws clashed together, and he felt a molar crack. Lithely he jumped up, straddling the boy's body, and with both hands dug his fingers deep into the roots of the boy's thick reddish-brown hair. "Bitch," he hissed, shoving the boy's head under the water with such force that it cracked against the bottom of the fountain. Then he pulled him out, and pushed him in again, and pulled him out, and pushed him in again, and he no longer knew that he was shouting out loud as he did so "Bitch! Bitch!"

Suddenly people were swarming all over him – blue uniforms pulling his prey from his hands; a strong pair of arms wrapping round him, pinning his own to his sides. He tried to fight them off. "Stop it!" a woman's voice cried. "It's me – Mink! Stop it, Reno – you're killing him! He's just a kid!"

For another moment or two he struggled against her, but she was as strong as he was, and she was fresh, while he…. Why was he fighting, when he had already lost?

"We don't do this," Mink exclaimed passionately. "We don't kill like this. This is not what we do."

It was over, anyway. The grunts had put the body, alive or dead, on a stretcher and were carrying it away. The water in the fountain had turned pink. Reno's trousers, his shirt, even his socks, were sticky with blood. Clumps of hair and scalp had wedged under his fingernails.

"Let's go," said Mink.

Go? What was she talking about? Go where? Nowhere, anywhere: it was all the same. Here or there, this fountain or the office, Midgar or Rocket Town, life or death… What difference did it make, when Cissnei was not waiting for him in any of these places?

She was never coming back. He would never see her again. He knew it, in his bones, in his gut, in his heart. She was gone.

He sat down on the edge of the fountain, put his bruised head in his bloody hands, and cried.

Mink had no idea why he was crying, or what had filled him with such rage; yet the sight of him made her own eyes burn. Of all of them, he was the last one she would have expected to see break down like this. Seating herself beside him, she only hesitated for a moment. Then she put her arms around his shoulders, and to comfort him murmured the nonsense everyone utters at times like these: it's OK, don't worry, everything will be all right.


	25. Punishments

**CHAPTER 25: PUNISHMENTS  
**_**[In which Reno comes to terms with Cissnei's double-dealing, and both Zack and Aerith turn to Tseng for advice]**_

_**

* * *

**_

Thinking it over a week or so later, Tseng came to the conclusion that their first mistake had been their willingness to believe that Genesis was dead. No one had seen his body with their own eyes. They had simply assumed that what ought to be, must be - always an unwise thing to do, as the recent events in Junon had amply proved. For on the same day that Reno had returned from Rocket Town, and Tseng had flown with Knox to Costa to bring back Cissnei, a very-much-alive Genesis had overrun Junon with a platoon of clones and sprung Profession Hollander from his interrogation cell, despite the best efforts of Zack and the Turks to stop him.

Tseng blamed Cissnei for this, too – possibly unfairly, but he felt it was her fault he had taken his eye off the ball. He had found her in Costa lounging on the beach in a skimpy bikini, watching Zack go through his morning exercises – Zack had looked almost relieved when Tseng appeared, an irony which, under other circumstances, might have afforded the Turk a degree of amusement. Cissnei had kept her cool, though; he had to admire her for that, even though she must have realized as soon as she saw him that her gamble had failed.

The surprise attack by a dozen Genesis clones had bought her a little time. Zack in his swimming trunks had fended the clones off with a rolled beach umbrella, and then Commander Veld had called, summoning them all to Junon, and so Cissnei's punishment had had to be deferred until the situation there was brought under control.

But now a week had passed, and she was gone. Gone for good this time, their brass-knuckled butterfly. The Commander had dealt with her. Where she had been sent, what she would do now, Tseng wasn't told, and he didn't ask. It was easier not to think about her – or if he must think of her (and he seemed unable to help himself) then it was not her husky laugh that he should remember, or that smile that brought sunshine into a room; he must forget her charm and her courage, forget the childlike way she cocked her head to one side when she listened, and the light that shone in her golden eyes when she took aim with her shuriken. Better to remember only that she was a liar and a manipulator, who had disobeyed her orders, deceived her partner, and betrayed the deepest of company secrets in pursuit of her own selfish ends. She had put herself first, and an innocent girl's life was now at risk as a result.

Tseng could not forgive her for that.

As for Reno… as soon as the stripes on his back healed, the Commander banished him to work on the bunker deep inside the plate. Reno was – not obedient, exactly – not resigned… _Apathetic_ was the word Tseng eventually arrived at. He did what he was ordered to do without comment or complaint, and this, in itself, was a cause for anxiety. For several days Tseng found excuses to be down in the bunker with him, half-afraid that he might try to blow his own brains out.

But Reno was a survivor. As they all were.

He had brought this misfortune on himself, of course, by flagrantly breaking the very rules that had been established for his own protection. One ought not to feel compassion for him, nor to wish, in any private corner of one's being, that things could have somehow turned out differently. Love, for a Turk, was a self-indulgence that could only ever end in disaster. Look at Rude – at Knox – at Rosalind – at Natalya and Charlie. Yet still they failed to learn.

And there were times when Tseng himself wasn't sure whether he pitied them, or envied them.

He tried to express something of what he felt to Reno, even though he knew he was clumsy with kind words.

"Typical of me, though, eh?" Reno replied. "What a sucker."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know. Look, can't you just bugger off and leave me to wallow in my self-pity for a while? I won't drown, if that's what you're afraid of. The puddle's pretty shallow."

Turning away from Tseng, Reno picked up an acetylene blowtorch, pulled his goggles over his eyes, and set to work soldering together two lengths of copper piping. Tseng glanced around. Over in the far corner he saw a shinrafoam mattress, covered by an old sleeping bag, lying on the concrete floor. Beside it was a bottle of what looked like vodka, three-quarters empty.

Raising his voice above the noise of the blowtorch, he said to Reno, "That boy Tys, your bike thief – the doctors tell me he's out of danger."

Reno went on working as if he had not heard.

"He says he took the bike for a dare," Tseng pressed on. "But my guess is, it was an initiation of some sort. From his tattoos it's clear he's a member of one of the Devil Ride gangs from the wasteland. Naturally, he denies it. He keeps asking about you, though. Seems you made quite an impression on him."

Reno concentrated on his welding.

"The Commander's thinking of recruiting him. There aren't many boys his age who could outwit our security, steal a Hardy-Daytona, and control it well enough to ride it out of the door. If you hadn't been there, he'd have got away with it."

The ends of the copper pipes were greenly hot, glowing like mako. Reno still said nothing.

"_You_ were the last one to pull anything remotely similar, if I recall," Tseng reminded him. "Stealing our own security cameras and fencing them in Wall Market. You had some nerve."

Reno faltered. His finger slipped from the trigger; the torch cut out. "Yeah. Too right I did." He looked round, pushing up the goggles. "And it took you bastards three months to catch _me."_

_

* * *

_

_Extract from Aviva's diary, 3__rd__ July 2002_

_ …. I keep coming back to the same question: why didn't I say something? I had information Mr Tseng needed. It was my job to speak up. Isn't that what R's always telling me? Stop thinking so hard and just do your job. _

_ I can't blame Rude. He did what he thought was right. I didn't. I knew I should have stopped them. _

_ I kept my mouth shut because I was afraid somebody might guess my true feelings if I said anything._

_ And even if nobody had guessed, I would still have known the truth. I was jealous. Sick jealous. I'm still jealous. Whoever said jealousy is a poison was right. It seeps into everything, like a pain that won't let me sleep or think about anything else. My clock says it's four o'clock in the morning. Does he sleep, down there in the dark? Does he ever get a break from thinking about her? _

_ I feel like I stood by and did nothing and watched while they drove their car off a cliff. Is that what I wanted? To get rid of her? _

_ I'd give anything to be able to turn back time and undo the damage I've done…._

* * *

One week and four days had passed since Hollander's escape from Junon, and Tseng was in his office, busy with the inevitable paperwork, when out of the corner of his eye he saw his doorway darken. He looked up.

"Can I talk to you?" asked Zack.

He did not wait for Tseng to reply, but came right in, carefully shutting the door behind him. With one fluid movement he detached Angeal's sword from its hook between his shoulder blades and leaned it against the wall, then strode over to Tseng's desk and dropped his six-foot-three of mako-powered muscle into the nearest swivel chair. Its springs creaked in protest.

Zack began, "About yesterday…."

The previous afternoon Tseng and Zack had run into each other outside Aerith's church. Such encounters were rare: Tseng usually saw or heard Zack coming from a long way off and took evasive action. Caught by surprise, but struggling not to show it, he had said something he immediately regretted. Luckily, that child had interrupted them (the kid, a little Reno in the making, was well known to Tseng, and smart enough to act like he'd never seen a Turk before; the Commander was keeping an eye on him as a potential future recruit). Tseng had taken the opportunity to withdraw, and had waited until he was certain Zack was not coming back before he went into the church.

"You know, Tseng, you've got me all wrong," said Zack now. "I'm not fooling around with Aerith. She means the world to me. But I just… There's so much stuff going on that I don't understand. I need some answers. You've always been honest with me, and you seem like an OK kind of guy. For a Turk. So I thought the best thing would be if I came and asked you straight."

Tseng had been half-expecting something like this ever since their return from Junon. Putting down his pen, he raised his coffee mug to his lips, took a sip, and said, "Go on."

"OK….Let's start with Cissnei. What's happened to her? She sent me an email a week ago and I replied but I never heard back from her. Her phone's been disconnected. Is she OK?"

"Cissnei's been redeployed. You won't be seeing her again."

"I asked if she was OK," Zack repeated, a little more aggressively.

"The internal workings of this department are not your concern. One of our operatives said some things she should not have said. She has been disciplined. That's all I'm prepared to say."

Zack opened his mouth to press the point, but the stoniness of Tseng's expression evidently made him think twice. Leaning back heavily in his chair, black brows knotted, he was silent for a few moments, and then said, "SOLDIER's my business, though. So what about my Executive Director? Can you tell me what's happened to him?"

"Director Lazard has left the company. We don't know where he's gone, or what he's doing."

"Cissnei said he was funding Hollander and Genesis." A note of pained disbelief had come into Zack's voice. "Is that true?"

"I'm sorry," said Tseng, feeling, in that moment, that he really was. "But I can't talk about it."

Zack threw up his hands angrily. "Goddamn company secrets! I'm sick of them! What else can't you talk about? How about Aerith? Or is she a company secret, too?"

"She was. For her own protection."

"Yeah, right."

Tseng leaned forward. "Zack, what did Cissnei say to you about Aerith, exactly?"

It took Zack a while to describe the things that Cissnei had said. Tseng listened patiently, and gradually it became clear to him that Zack did not fully understand everything his ex-lover had told him. He lacked the vocabulary – and, perhaps, the imagination.

"…I understand that she's the last surviving member of this tribe she comes from; I get that, but I still don't understand exactly _why_ she's so interesting to you," Zack concluded. "She sees like a pretty normal girl to me. What is it about her that makes her important to Shinra?"

"Some powerful people within this company believe she may have information that could prove… beneficial. To everyone's interests.

"Make Shinra rich, you mean," Zack countered, cocking a cynical eyebrow. It didn't look good on him.

"Shinra is already rich. In any case, I wouldn't have thought the two were mutually exclusive. Quite the opposite, in fact. But that's beside the point. Because of this information that Aerith may have, she is at constant risk of falling into, or being seized, by the wrong hands – "

"And who decides which hands are the wrong hands? You?"

"I think AVALANCHE would be the wrong hands," Tseng replied smoothly. "Don't you? Or have you already forgotten what happened to Essai and Sebastian?"

Zack's face darkened. "Of course I haven't. But are you telling me that _that_'s why you're always hanging round her? To guard her?"

"Primarily, yes. Of course we would like her to share the information with us. But we can't force her. We hope that in time she'll come to trust us enough to work with us of her own free will."

"And you're not going to tell me what that information is, are you?"

"No. It is her secret. If you really want to know, you must ask her."

Zack sat in silence, turning Tseng's words over his mind. "OK," he said at last. "I guess that seems reasonable. But if she's so important, why do you leave her in the slums? Shouldn't she be living somewhere more - I don't know – appropriate?"

"We don't tell Aerith what to do. She lives where she wants and she does as she pleases. If she wanted us to move her, she would only need to ask. But she's happy where she is."

"Yeah," Zack smiled. "That's true. She loves that Church. And everybody in the whole neighbourhood loves her. This is kind of embarrassing, but – you know who I thought she was the first time I saw her? An angel."

The boy was blushing.

"Are we done here?" asked Tseng.

"Yes – I mean, no –" Zack stumbled over his words. "There's something else I have to know. Cissnei said… I mean, when you watch her, you don't just _watch_ her, right? You record everything…" Zack's blush had deepened. He fidgeted in his chair, unable to meet Tseng's eyes. "Like mission reports. You record everything Aerith does. I mean, what she and I do when we're together. Cissnei said you have files – "

"We do not discuss our confidential files," said Tseng, terminating this awkward line of inquiry.

Zack continued to look uncomfortable, shifting restlessly in his chair. Without warning he jumped to his feet, moving so fast that for a moment Tseng thought he was going to flee from the room. But he only crossed over to the window, and stood there, arms folded, apparently staring down at Midgar, though it was obvious to Tseng that he was looking at nothing. Some unhappy thought had taken hold of his mind, and he was giving it his full attention.

Zack stood like this for almost a minute, and Tseng watched him, saying nothing. Then Zack turned away from the window and walked over to where Angeal's sword rested against the wall. Tenderly, wistfully, he put out a hand and caressed the smoothness of its hilt. The gesture was one of respect, and grief, and longing.

_If Angeal were still alive_, Tseng realized, _Zack would not be here now talking to me._

When Zack looked up, his face was deeply troubled.

"Tseng – we're friends, aren't we?"

_Are we? _thought Tseng in some surprise.

In all the many hours of mental energy he had expended on this SOLDIER, _friend_ had never been a word that came to his mind. _Asset_, yes, and sometimes also _potential liability, question mark_; occasionally, _colleague_, but just as frequently, _tool._

And in the quietest hours of the night, when he was being most deeply honest with himself: _my gift to her._

"There's something else that's been bothering me," Zack continued. "This one isn't really about Aerith. Or… I don't know, maybe it is. Have you seen that thing that's come to live in her church? It sits up in the rafters, like a big bird with four legs."

"The monster?"

Zack frowned. "I wouldn't call it a monster. More like a – a - guardian? It saved her from a rogue robot once. I get the strangest feeling that it's watching over her too. It has…. It's white, you know. White and gold. Like – like he was."

"Angeal?"

"It has his face."

"I know."

"What is it?"

The Turk shrugged. "Probably one of the fragmentary copies that split off during the cloning process. But that's just my guess. I don't know much about how it works."

"But remember how we thought the Genesis clones were remnants? And now it turns out he's still alive? And now Seph says Hojo thinks the clones can only stay alive as long as the original donor stays alive – "

"That's just Hojo's theory. He's been wrong before."

"Angeal could still be alive, Tseng."

There was so much hope in his eyes, so much longing in his voice.

"You killed Angeal," said Tseng. "You know you did."

"But maybe I didn't. I thought I'd killed Genesis, but he's not dead either. Maybe they _can't_ die. That fall down the mineshaft would have killed any normal person. If Angeal is alive – "

Tseng held up a hand to stop him. "Zack, believe me when I say that what I'm telling you now is for your own good. Don't go any further down this road you're on. Nothing but madness lies at the end of it. Angeal is dead. He's happier dead. You gave him what he wanted. Now let him rest in peace."

The light of hope went out of Zack's face. His shoulders slumped. Still he continued to stroke the sword as if it were a living thing. His eyes were unbearably sad. Tseng had to look away.

"I guess you're right," Zack admitted at last. He shook himself (throwing off the burden of longing, the weight of a dead hand on his shoulder) and straightened up. His face looked calmer, but no happier.

Tseng said, "Can I ask you something now?"

"What?

"Who else have you spoken to about Aerith? Have you told Sephiroth?"

Zack snorted. "Are you kidding me? You don't talk to Seph about stuff like that. I haven't told anyone. Just my friend Kunsel. But don't worry – he can keep a secret."

* * *

Rude was down in the bunker, working with Reno. He wasn't supposed to be there, but he went anyway – quietly, but openly. He knew Tseng knew. Which meant the Commander knew. If they wanted to forbid him, they had only to say the word.

Most of the time he and Reno worked together in silence. _Makes a change_, thought Rude to himself, not really meaning it. He'd found peace in silence. But Reno would suffocate. That was why Rude was here. There was nothing like saying nothing to get someone talking.

He did little bits and pieces for Reno. Tidied up – cleaned the ashtrays, threw out the empty bottles. Bought new ones. Took his clothes away, washed them, brought them back.

"Gee, thanks, Mum." There was no bite to Reno's sarcasm. He only said it because he knew Rude expected it. Which meant he was trying at least, Rude supposed.

The work itself was good. It felt satisfying to build something where nothing had been before. Rude enjoyed scavenging the corridors and contractors' dumps for items they could re-use. There were real treasures to be found: an old pinball machine that Reno soon had working again, and a bicycle bent out of shape. With a hammer and some pliers, a little oil and a lot of patience, Rude fixed it, got on it, and rode it around the bunker.

He could have sworn he heard Reno chuckle.

One day he and Reno were building a partition wall out of old sheetrock and salvaged joists – Reno was holding the board in place, and Rude was hammering – when Reno said, "D'you ever blame her?"

Rude's mouth was full of nails. He spat them into his hand. He knew who Reno meant. "Yeah. At first. Not now."

"D'you think you'll ever see her again?"

"Who knows?"

"D'you want to?"

Rude thought about this one for a long time. Finally he said, "No."

All this time Reno had been holding the board in place, as if he'd forgotten about it. Now he put it down. "I don't blame her," he said.

He was talking about a different _her_ now.

"She just did what she had to do. You know what I'm saying? Whatever it takes, right? She was a Turk on a mission, and I was a means to an end."

_Doesn't make it any easier to forgive,_ thought Rude_. You guys were partners._

"She never lied to me. It was me who didn't listen. I heard what I wanted to hear."

_Tell me about it_, thought Rude. He'd been down that road too.

"I should have known better. I knew what she was."

Rude waited for Reno to elaborate, but Reno was lighting a cigarette and seemed disinclined to go on. Eventually, Rude had to ask. "What was she?"

"Oh, come on," Reno laughed, a mirthless sound. Smoke curled out of his nostrils. "What we all are. What the Chief wants. What Shinra needs."

"You mean the company's to blame?"

Reno did not answer him directly, but instead, after thinking for a moment, posed a question of his own: "Rude, d'you have any idea how many kids there are in that orphanage she came from?"

"I don't know. Hundreds."

"At least three hundred. And how many has the Chief ever recruited?"

"Just her."

"Right. Because she was the one who had what it took. It was the same with all of us. He came looking for us, and he found us, and he licked us into shape, but he didn't _make _us what we are."

Rude, who had given this matter a lot of thought over the last few years, tended to agree. "So - what did?'

"Who knows? Life? Genes? Bad blood?" Reno snorted. "Fate, if I believed in it."

"You're saying it was inevitable?"

"I'm just saying I don't blame her, is all." Reno picked up the particleboard. "You know, you talk too much, Rude. Has anyone ever told you that? Now quit your yakking and let's get back to work. This bunker isn't going to build itself."

* * *

As it turned out, Zack was wrong about his friend. Kunsel couldn't keep a secret. He told Luxiere; Luxiere told his girlfriend, who worked in Fleet Management, and she told everyone who worked on her floor. Few of them cared one way or the other about a slum girl they had never met, but most of them – the women, anyway – were interested enough in Zack to pass the news on. Thus, slowly, through the osmosis of idle gossip, knowledge of Aerith's existence seeped up through the Shinra Building. With most of the employees the news went in one ear and out the other; the word 'Cetra' meant nothing to them, and anyway they had more important things to think about. But a few found it worth remembering.

Recognising that it was only a matter of time before the rumour reached the 70th Floor, Veld had already made a pre-emptive strike and broken the news to the President himself. The Old Man was almost delirious with joy. He was all for sending the troops down to bring her into the labs straight away, so that Hojo could scan her brainwaves, unravel her genes, map her memories, find out the coordinates for the Promised Land, and clone half a dozen of her just to be on the safe side. With difficulty, Veld managed to calm him down and make him understand that Hojo's labs were incapable of carrying out the kind of procedures he dreamt of: there was no materia for mind-reading. And the cloning process was far from perfected. It tended to damage the minds of its subjects rather than duplicate them. Did Shinra really want to risk the last surviving Cetra in what was, essentially, an experiment?

"Sometimes I have to wonder just how much my old man understands of the science that goes on in this building," said Rufus, giving his version of these events to Tseng the following day. "Of course, he'll believe anything Hojo tells him. How else could that old fraud keep persuading my father to underwrite his useless so-called experiments? When I'm running this company, my first act will be to demand his resignation."

Only since Lazard's disappearance had Rufus begun to talk like this, referring openly to the things he planned to do when he became President. Some of his ideas, Tseng had to admit, made sense.

"I remember Aerith," Rufus went on. "She used to pull my hair and hit me with a metal ruler. Imagine you managing to track her down after all these years. I'm impressed."

"It would have better for the company if her identity could have remained a secret."

"Yes. I do see that, actually," Rufus replied. "But now that her existence is public knowledge, how long will it be before AVALANCHE try to get their hands on her? All the Old Man's hopes are pinned on that girl, you know. I don't know what he'd do if you were to lose his Cetra."

This concern was also uppermost in Veld's mind. Left where she was, the primary objective was vulnerable. Yet taking her into protective custody would instantly break the trust Tseng had painstakingly been building between them for the last six years. More could be lost than gained… especially now that her relationship with Zack Fair was bringing her closer to Shinra than she had ever been before. Soon, Veld hoped, she would arrive at the point towards which Tseng had been coaxing her all this time, when she would, at long last, identify her interests with the Company's, and tell them the secret they had waited so long to know.

Ifalna's stubborn silence and needless death were never far from Veld's thoughts. Aerith's loyalty to her mother would make any direct cooperation with Shinra feel like a betrayal; he understood that. But Ifalna's voice must be fading in the girl's memory by now. Zack was alive, warm, flesh and blood, and she loved him. Tseng had been absolutely right to defend the boy: they wouldn't be where they were now without him. So close. _So close._ No, they couldn't risk alienating her at this critical juncture.

Thus, after giving the matter lengthy consideration, Veld chose to maintain the status quo.

* * *

_PHS Transcript 9__th__ August 2002, 7.12 am_

_Hunter: Tseng, sir? It's me, Hunter._

_Tseng: Are you all right? Where are you?_

_Hunter: Yes I am, no thanks to my so-called colleagues. Skeeter and Tys spiked my soda and left me to sleep it off in a slum bar!_

_{static. Staccato bursts of noise}_

_Tseng: Is that gunfire?_

_Hunter: I'm in a bit of a situation here, sir. It's nothing I can't handle, but the girl insisted I ring you._

_Tseng: What girl?_

_Hunter: The one these thugs are chasing. She ran into me when I was trying to find my way back to the plate, and I'm helping her. She knew who I was from the suit. She thought you'd sent me, sir. It seems like she knows you. _

_Tseng: Aerith._

_Hunter: I'll just ask her. {static} Yes, that's her name._

_{loud gunfire}_

_Tseng: Talk to me! Are you still there? Is she all right?_

_Hunter: We're in a house. We're going to go out over the roof. Why are they after her, sir?_

_Tseng: Listen carefully. Try to elude them and make your way to the church. She knows what I mean. I'll meet you there. Hunter - keep her safe. She's very precious. _

_._

When Tseng arrived at the church steps half an hour later, the doors were standing wide open. He paused on the threshold to listen. Silence. The scent of the flowers was more than usually intense. Gun in hand, he entered, closing the doors behind him. The first thing he saw was Hunter, crouching on the floor between the pews, holding her left arm at an unnatural angle. Before he made a move towards her, he completed his visual survey of his surroundings. Carefully he examined the spaces under each pew, scanned the rafters, and listened for footsteps on the roof. There was nothing to be seen or heard - nothing but the white, winged creature perched on the beam overhead, almost lost in the shadows. It seemed to be asleep.

"Hunter?" he said quietly.

"They've gone, sir. They heard the helicopter and they left."

He lowered his gun and came over to her. "How many?"

"Chasing us? About half a dozen. Then here, three." She grimaced as pain shot through her arm. "They were waiting when we arrived. Big guy. Gay nerd with glasses. Tough-looking woman."

"Where's Aerith?"

Hunter gestured towards the east end of the nave. "She went that way. She's OK. But boy, she's furious. I don't think she wants to talk to you."

"You need medical attention," said Tseng, looking down at her. "Go to the helicopter, have them take you home. I'll make my own way back."

He helped her get to her feet. With her good hand Hunter flicked her ponytail over her shoulder. "I just want you to know," she said, "That I do not have the slightest idea what has been going on here, and I was in the middle of it. Not a very good position to be in, sir. Can I expect some kind of explanation later?"

"What you need to know, you'll be told. Go now."

Once she was gone, he continued to walk up the nave, measuring each footstep, reluctant to break the peace of this place with the echo of his heavy boots. He called her name, and then, when he got no reply, he called to her again, more loudly. A door opened in the north wall of the sanctuary. His knees weakened with relief when she appeared, her face smudged with dirt and her hair-ribbon coming untied, but safe - safe and whole.

She advanced on him with rapid steps, her plait whipping from side to side, her lips set in a stern line. There was anger in her voice, and authority, when she pointed at his gun and said, "The day you fire that thing in here is the day you are no longer my friend."

To please her, he put the gun away.

She said, "How's that girl? She saved my life, I think."

"That's her job. Aerith, tell me, what did they say to you? What did they want?"

"Oh, stop it!" She beat the air with her fists. "Questions! Work! What do you think they wanted? What do you all want? Why can't you stop hounding me? I just want to be left alone to get on with my life."

"I warned you this would happen," he reminded her. "You were lucky today." "Lucky! Lucky! How can you say that?"

"You're still alive – "

"Yes, and my life is so wonderful, isn't it?"

Abruptly she sat down in the nearest pew. Wrapping her arms around her thin shoulders, Aerith stared at the floor and said in a bleak voice, "Zack found out about me."

She looked so lost sitting like that, and so alone, hugging herself for comfort. A part of him wondered if maybe she was hoping _he_ would hold her; but the part of him that longed to throw caution to the winds and take her in his arms was reined back by the remembrance that nothing good could come of giving way to such impulses - not for him, not for her, not for anyone.

He remained standing. "I'm aware of that," he replied.

The coolness of his tone, like a slap in the face, revived her anger. She threw up her head and stared at him accusingly, "I thought it was a secret. _Our_ secret."

"Nobody meant this to happen."

"Oh yes they did. That other girl did, the one who told him. The one who works for you. His other girlfriend."

"Aerith, Zack doesn't have any other girlfriends."

She laughed in a way he had never heard her laugh before: sourly. "You're always trying to protect me, aren't you? But I'm not a kid any more. I have eyes; I can see. He's looking at other girls all the time, even when he's out with me. And they look back. If he's looking at them when we're together, what's he doing with them when we're apart? Especially now – now that he knows I'm…. not like other people – "

"Aerith – "

"I wouldn't blame him if he decided I wasn't worth the trouble. He has enough on his plate as it is. He doesn't need this."

Tseng's gut instinct was to rage at Zack. Why couldn't the SOLDIER at least have the decency to curb his roving eye when he out was with Aerith? Couldn't he see how vulnerable she was beneath that streetwise veneer? If he loved her, as he said he did, then why did he have to make her unhappy -

_God, what a stupid question._

Tseng sat down in the pew beside hers. "What do you want me to say?" he asked, folding his arms. "It's a difficult situation. You're very young. Both of you."

"Oh please. You sound like my mother."

"Elmyra doesn't approve?"

"That's the understatement of the year. She thinks he's no good for me. According to her, all soldiers just want one thing, and any girl who runs around with them gets a reputation."

"Don't you think she'd think that about any man her daughter dated? You're very dear to her, Aerith."

Aerith sighed, and pulled at the white drop earring Tseng remembered had once hung in Ifalna Gast's ear. "The thing is," she confessed, "I hate to admit it, but sometimes I can't help wondering if maybe my mother is right. When he's here with me he's so – so – _overwhelming_, I can't think of anything except how much I want to be with him. It's when I'm alone that the doubt starts to eat away at me. I want to trust him, but I'm afraid to. I know I'm young. But I don't want to be played for a fool."

She looked expectantly into Tseng's eyes.

The pain he felt when she did this was of a peculiarly exquisite kind. She trusted him to give her the truth. But she wanted more than that. She wanted hope, too. She wanted him to tell her she could trust Zack – and she would believe him, though she had been unable to believe Zack when he told her the same thing.

Well, the truth he could give her. As for the hope… that was something she would have to make up her own mind about.

"Aerith, I can't predict what will happen in the future. I can't promise you it will all work out. All I can tell you is what I see happening now. Yes, it's true that Zack used to have a lot of girlfriends, but I don't think any of them were very serious. Since he met you, that's all stopped. As far as I know, you are the only one."

"Truly?"

"Yes."

She smiled. "So… do you watch him too, then?"

"On occasion."

Her smile deepened. A glint of mischief brightened her eyes. "That's really not good for me to know. I might be tempted to ask too many questions. Are you _really_ sure he hasn't got anyone else?" she demanded, suddenly earnest again.

"Yes."

"But if he's happy with me, why is he always looking at other girls?"

"Men do look. It doesn't necessarily mean anything."

"Do _you_ look?"

"When I'm not working."

She laughed, "But you're always working." Her heart sounded lighter now. "Poor Tseng, what a life! Looks like I'll just have to fix you up with a girlfriend myself. Let me see – you need a girl who likes to live a little… Someone petite, and not too serious – oh, and she should be a good cook, too, to stop you looking so peaky. Yes, you just leave it all to me…."

He allowed her to rattle on in this vein, amusing herself, until her imagination was exhausted and she fell silent, her eyes sparkling.

He said, "I need to know about the three people who were here."

"Oh, you're no fun. All right, let's see – " She began ticking the points off on her fingers. "One was a thin man with glasses and a gun, and one was a tall, strong man wearing a bandana. I don't know what their names were. Then there was a tall woman with short brown hair. They said her name was Elfe. She's sick."

"Sick?"

"In pain. I could see that. And she has a secret, but she doesn't know that she does. A secret secret. Maybe it's the secret that's making her sick."

"How can you know that?"

Aerith grinned. "The flowers told me. But seriously, she is ill. I was worried for her. They told me the cure for her illness could only be found in the Promised Land, and that was why they wanted to find it."

"You're not really that gullible, are you?"

"They didn't know what they were talking about. It's funny how everyone believes in this place. I wonder if it even exists. If it does, why hasn't someone found it? You've been all over this planet – why haven't _you_ seen it?"

"This planet has barely begun to be explored. It would take us lifetimes… "

She put a hand on his knee and looked into his face. "I don't know where it is, Tseng. Why won't you believe me?"

A thought darted across his mind: _because if I believed you, I'd no longer have an excuse to come here…_

Down at the far end of the nave the church doors boomed open and Zack came bounding in, his footsteps making the floorboards shake. "Aerith! Are you all right?" He ran up to her and pulled her into a protective embrace. "Tseng, what happened? Is she all right?"

"I fought them off with my bare hands! Biff, pow - " Aerith giggled, landing a playful punch on Zack's chin.

"Was it AVALANCHE?" he asked Tseng.

"She had a lucky escape, but she's fine. Now that you're here, I'll leave her with you," he added as he got up to go.

"Hang on," said Zack. "I'll walk with you. Aerith, wait here. I'll be back in a minute, OK?"

Tseng had no desire to talk to Zack right now. All he wanted was to get away. But Zack was determined. He followed Tseng out the door and onto the porch, and when Tseng would have walked down the steps he put a hand on the Turk's shoulder to hold him back. Tseng wrenched away from Zack's grip, and turned around to face him.

The SOLDIER had taken up an aggressive stance, feet wide apart, arms folded. Never before had Tseng been made to feel so conscious of Zack's sheer size, his height and the strength of his presence.

Zack said, "I don't think she's safe here any longer. We should move her for her own protection."

When he heard this, something inside Tseng – his patience; his willingness to efface himself from the picture – snapped.

"I've known Aerith all her life," he said, "And you've known her for what, a year? Don't try to tell me how to look after her."

"All her life?" Zack was startled. "But I thought - "

"This is nothing to do with you. It's between Aerith and me. She knows she has only to say the word."

"What word? What are you talking about? What the hell is going on here, Tseng? What do you mean, you've known her all her life?"

"I've told you before. Ask _her_."

Zack's brow furrowed. He stood deep in thought for a few moments.

_How he's changed_, thought Tseng.

The clueless boy who, nearly three years ago, had partnered the Turks' second-in-command on that mission to Banora would never have dared to assert himself like this. Nor would he have asked the kind of questions Zack had begun to ask these last few months. Or doubted his superiors. Or criticized Shinra.

No one could call him a puppy now.

"I'm not happy with this situation," said Zack.

"Do you think I am?"

Zack shrugged as if that didn't matter. "It's not just that she's in danger," he said. "I really hate knowing we're being watched all the time. What happened today proves that you can't guarantee her safety. So why don't you call off your goons?"

Tseng opened his mouth, but Zack waved a hand to show he hadn't finished. "Listen, Tseng – we both want Aerith to be safe, don't we? So let's come to some arrangement. When I'm with Aerith, I'll be responsible for her protection, and your watchdogs can clear off and let us have some privacy. When I have to leave her, I'll give you a call, and your people can take over. What d'you say?"

"I can't make that kind of decision – "

"Put it to Commander Veld then. C'mon, man, help me out here. I know you have to do your job, but you're the one guy who really understands what Aerith means to me. We have so little time together. When we are together, I'd like for us to be _alone_. Couldn't you let us have at least a chance?"

_A chance for what, though?_ Tseng wondered.

He avoided giving Zack a straight answer, and left soon after, but the question continued to worry away at his mind. What kind of chance was Zack dreaming of now? Did the two of them actually believe they had some sort of future together?

Were they falling into the danger, as Aerith's parents had done before them, of being seduced by the illusion of freedom?

_I've made a mistake_, Tseng told himself, not the first time. Over these last weeks doubt had been hardening to certainty. It was his fault; he should never have allowed Aerith's relationship with the SOLDIER to progress as far as it had. Yet it had seemed so harmless at first: a little flirtation, a light romance. He had not wanted to deny her these things, things every normal girl longed for – but it felt to him now as if he had encouraged her to deceive herself.

Where would it all end? For end it must, sooner or later, and all the ends he could foresee were bad ones. Yet how could he stop it now?

* * *

_19__th__ September 2002 15.45 pm_

Reno was back in the office for the first time in almost three months. He'd been inside the plate for so long he looked like something that had just crawled out from under a rock. His colleagues were being very careful around him, carefully pretending that he had never been away. To his face they acted so normal it was almost painful to see. But when they thought he wasn't looking….

Aviva's huge round black eyes, pitying him –

Rosalind, her glow extinguished, glancing his way with a look on her face that said, _I know –_

Knox, sighing from time to time over his paperwork –

Skeeter, eyeing him curiously and waiting for - what?

It made him want to take out his gun and fire it into the air. _Fucking stop tiptoeing round me! _

Had they all sat down before he came back and had a discussion about how they should handle him? _Don't talk about stuff he wasn't here for! Don't ask any questions! And never mention her name!_

It was more than flesh and blood could bear. He stood up. "It's dead in here since Cissnei left," he said, pushing the components he was working on into a box. "You stiffs can keep your morgue. I'm going to go work somewhere else."

He went into the briefing room and spread his work out on the table.

Progress on the bunker had advanced to the stage where the computer network could be installed. The work was time consuming; Mozo and Rude had been assigned to help him. They could not simply walk down into the plate carrying boxes of monitors and CPUs; that would be too conspicuous. Each item had to be taken apart and labeled, carried down hidden under their clothes or in shopping bags, and then painstakingly reassembled. The task demanded concentration and a high level of attention to detail: it was the kind of work Reno could lose himself in, as long as he was left alone.

The door opened. Mozo and Rude came in, carrying boxes of their own.

"Fuck off," said Reno.

"I'd like nothing better," Mozo replied, setting his box down on the table, "But right now I've got wiring to do, and you took the needle-nose pliers."

They spread themselves out around the table and went to work. For some time, maybe half an hour, there was no conversation beyond 'pass me that screwdriver' and 'where's the tape?'. Reno smoked while he worked. With both his hands engaged, he never took the cigarette from his mouth, but occasionally rolled it from one side to the other, skillfully flicking it with his tongue so that the ash dropped on the floor and not in his workspace. Mozo went and got everyone coffee. When he came back, he asked, "What's the plan with these things? How are they going to work?"

Reno explained, "The Chief wants me to connect them up to the surveillance bank here with a radio link. But I don't like it. Radio's too easy to jam. I'd rather run a cable. Hide it among all the others."

"Be kilometers of cable," said Rude.

"I could do it. Wouldn't be hard. Just take time."

They went back to working silently.

While his hands were busy, Reno's thoughts ranged over many things, some of them more pleasant than others. Eventually they came to rest on the memory of helping Cid Highwind on the Shinra 26 - maybe because what he'd been doing there that day was like the work he was doing now, fiddling with a finicky mess of wires, turning them into something that made sense and had a purpose. For almost two whole days, there in Rocket Town, he hadn't been a Turk; he'd just been a regular guy doing a regular job. A different person. And it had felt… OK. Though maybe it wasn't something he'd want to do for the rest of his life.

"Hey guys," he said, "D'you ever…." No, stupid idea. He tailed off.

"What?" asked Rude.

"Nothing. Forget it."

"Go on, we're curious now," said Mozo.

"Well… All right. But you asked. I was just thinking, do you ever wonder about that other life? I mean, the one you'd have had if the Chief hadn't come for you?"

"Sure," said Rude. "Sometimes."

"What would it have been, d'you think? What would you have done?"

Rude shrugged. "Brickie's mate? Junk dealer? I'd enjoy that."

"Cabaret artist, you," Mozo laughed. "But you forget, Reno, I _had_ another life before I came here."

"Nah, I remember. You were a private eye inn Costa."

"So what went wrong?" asked Rude.

Mozo turned to him. "I broke the first rule of sleuthing."

"Which is?"

"Never get involved." Mozo paused dramatically.

Rude and Reno waited.

"If you're going to tell, tell," said Reno.

"OK." Mozo put his feet on the table and settled himself more comfortably in his chair. "So – here's the gig. There's this guy who owns half the Costan coast and he has this son that's his only child. So this rich guy fixes it for his son to marry the daughter of his biggest business rival. The companies are going to merge, everybody gets richer, everybody's happy. But there's a hitch. Junior doesn't want to marry business rival's little heiress. He's already in love with some other chick. So he runs away with said chick. Rich guy hires me to track them down. I'm supposed to eliminate the problem."

"Couldn't you find them?" asked Rude.

"Oh, please, don't insult me. I found them, no problem. Cutest pair of love bugs you ever saw. And scared shitless at the sight of your truly." A shadow passed over his face; his smile faltered. "Good kids. Nice kids." Then he rubbed a hand briskly over his scrubbing-brush hair, grinned, and took up the story again. "I guess I let them get away. What a sap, huh? Thing is, if I'd kept my mouth shut and let the rich guy think the kids had given me the slip, I'd probably have got off with nothing worse than a few bruises and some dents in my reputation. But no. Like a fool, I decide that I can fix it for everybody. So back I go to rich guy and say, 'hey, why can't you be a proper Dad and respect your son's wishes? Don't you want him to be a man? A man has a right to choose his own wife.' So now guess whose blood this guy's after? That was when I called the Chief and told him I wanted to accept his offer."

"He'd been trying to recruit you for a while, huh?" said Reno.

"Hey, I was the best. You ask anyone in Costa. They'll remember me. But what about you, Reno? You asked the question. D'you ever wonder what you might have done if things had turned out differently?"

"Yeah. I was thinking maybe I could have been an electrician – "

Rude burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" Reno demanded.

"You," Rude chortled. "Denim overalls. Cloth cap. Little toolbox. I can just picture it."

Rude's laughter was contagious. Mozo started chucking too, and said, "Yes, yes – look, this is Reno, knocking on the door." Putting on a reedy nasal voice, he drawled, "'Morning, ma'am, Sparky here, just come to fiddle with your fuse box, yo –' "

"Fuck you, I don't sound like that!" Reno paused. "Do I?" The note of anxiety in his voice set the other two laughing harder. After a few moments, Reno joined in.

When their laughter had died down, he asked Mozo, "So anyway, how old were you? When you signed up?

"Twenty-four. Young and idealistic."

"D'you ever regret it?"

"Nope. I like being alive. I mean, everyone gets the bloom rubbed off them sooner or later, but this is a pretty good life. We do work that needs doing. The pay's not bad. My colleagues are all lunatics, but you can't have everything. And you know me: I always like to see the bad guys get what's coming to them – "

The ringing of his phone interrupted Mozo in mid-flow. It was Tseng. They spoke briefly. Then Mozo shut his phone, stood up, and said to Rude and Reno, "Gotta go. The Boss has an assignment for me." Shaping his hand into a gun, he squinted down the barrel fingers, pretending to shoot each of them in turn. "Pyow! Pyow! Catch you later, eh, Rude? See you, Sparky!"

* * *

_20th September, 2002, 10.00 am_

Shinra Helicopter B1-9 hovered in the sky above the Nibelheim reactor. Tseng was at the controls, with Cavour in the co-pilot's seat beside him. Back in the hold Mink and Mozo were putting on their parachutes. Tseng looked down through the wispy clouds at the domed roof of the reactor, straining his eyes for some sign of life.

All contact with reactor personnel had been lost twenty-four hours earlier, halfway through a phone conversation made by the terrified manager to Director Reeve Tuesti. In the transcript of their conversation, which Tseng had read, the manager had said they were under attack, and kept repeating the words _it's the monsters. Those monsters._

But monsters did not try to take over reactors. Monsters did not plan, or have a purpose, or organise. They were animals: they slept, ate, and responded to stimuli. Some human intelligence was behind this. Tseng suspected Genesis, and possibly Lazard, though it could just as easily be AVALANCHE.

To make matters worse, he'd been unable to get in contact with the Commander. Veld had disappeared a week ago on an unspecified mission with Charlie and had been incommunicado ever since. "I can't hold your hand forever," he'd said to Tseng before he left. "I miss the field work, goddammit. You'll be fine. I have faith in you."

From the back of the helicopter Mink said, "We're ready, sir."

"Proceed with extreme caution," Tseng advised them. "You don't know what you'll be facing down there. The priority is to establish the facts of the situation, and to save lives if you can, but don't put yourselves at risk."

"Roger," Mink and Mozo replied. They each removed their headsets. Mozo went first, throwing himself through the open door and hurtling earthwards. Mink followed more sedately, stepping out into the air.

Tseng gave them a few moments before he yawed the helicopter around. Far below, their two parachutes bobbed like thistledown on the wind. "I hope they'll be all right," he murmured to himself. Then he brought up the collective, and began the long flight back to Midgar.

.

_15.40 pm_

The coastline of the Great Continent was just appearing over the horizon when his phone rang.

_Mink: Sir, it's impossible to get anywhere near the reactor. The entire mountaintop is overrun with dragons._

_Tseng: Any sign of survivors? _

_Mink: None, sir. But the reactor itself is still generating some power._

_Tseng: Any evidence as to who's behind this?_

_Mink: None, sir, I'm sorry._

_Tseng: Damn. What's your current position?_

_Mink: We're on the path just below the reactor._

_Tseng: It's too easy to get lost in those mountains. Can you see the ropeway from there?_

_Mink: I know where it is, sir. I've been here before._

_Tseng: See if you can get to it. Go down to the town and await my instructions. _

_._

_17.15 hours_

He was climbing out of the helicopter on the edge of the Sector Six slums when the phone rang again.

_Mozo: We're in the town now, Boss. The cable car was attacked. It's been destroyed. We walked down. A girl showed us the way._

_Tseng: What girl?_

_Mozo: One of the locals. We found her up near the reactor. She was looking for her lost cat. She seems to know these mountains pretty well. _

_Tseng: Good. We're going to need a guide. Hire her. The President's called out SOLDIER. He's sending Sephiroth and Zack Fair._

_Mozo: Both of them? Is that really necessary?_

_Tseng: It's the President's decision. That's reactor's our flagship. They'll be there tomorrow afternoon with a couple of regular army troopers. Wait for them at the inn, and brief them. _

_Mozo: Roger. _

_._

Zack had asked him to come to the playground. Tseng made his way there on foot. While still some distance away, he saw that Zack was not alone, and felt angry with himself for having failed to foresee this. He was in no mood for Aerith's playfulness this evening.

The wagon Zack had made for her was loaded with flowers. Were they trying to sell them? Who in these slums had gil to spare for something they could neither eat nor wear nor use? And why set up shop in the playground? Was this some kind of game they were playing? They'd have done better to push it to Wall Market, though if Aerith really meant to make a go of this venture she'd need to come to Upper Midgar; that was where the money was. She would have to get over her fear of the sky… but then, if Zack had talked her into selling her flowers, he could probably talk her into anything.

Tseng concealed himself behind the big slide and waited for Zack to realize he was there. It wasn't long before one of the local children came in, a friend of Aerith's. While she was showing him her wagon and explaining about her new business, Zack came over to Tseng.

"Look after her while I'm gone," he said. "You're the only one I can rely on."

Tseng gave his throaty chuckle.

"What's so funny?" asked Zack.

_Just do your job_, thought Tseng, _and I'll do mine. _

.

22nd September 2002, 08.32 hours

_Mink: Sir, the General is refusing to let us accompany them to the reactor._

_Tseng: Did he give a reason?_

_Mink: No, sir. Zack said we cramp their style, though. _

_Tseng: All right. Don't push it. They can brief you when they come back._

_Mink: Roger._

Tseng closed the phone.

Clearly, Sephiroth suspected Genesis, too.

.

22nd September 2002, 19.45 hours

_Mozo: SOLDIER's back, Boss. But Sephiroth's acting very strangely. They won't tell us anything. _

_Tseng: Have you talked to the troopers who went with them?_

_Mozo: One got left behind when a rope bridge broke and had to make his own way back. He doesn't know anything. Sephiroth wouldn't let the other one go in the reactor._

_Tseng: There's something not right about this._

_Mozo: I agree._

_Tseng: Now that they've cleared the path, I want you to go up to that reactor yourselves tomorrow and check it out._

_Mozo: Understood. _

_._

22nd September 2002, 20.00 hours

_Tseng: Zack, what's going on?_

_Zack: There was nothing in the reactor. Nothing._

_Tseng: No sign of Genesis?_

_Zack: No!_

_Tseng: Is there something wrong with Sephiroth?_

_Zack: No. He's fine. Look, Tseng, I'm the only friend he's got left. Just leave him to me, OK?_

_Tseng: Be careful, Zack. Don't forget who you work for._

There was a click, and the line went dead.

.

23rd September 2002, 13.50 hours

_Mink: We're up here at the reactor, sir, but we can't get in. It's been locked. We can't pick it. _

_Tseng: Who locked it?_

_Mink: I guess SOLDIER did, sir. Do you want us to blow it open?_

_Tseng: No. We don't want to risk letting loose whatever is in there. But one of you needs to keep an eye on the reactor at all times. What are Zack and Sephiroth doing? _

_Mink: The General went into the old mansion this morning. Said he wanted to do some research. Zack's in there too. _

_Tseng: What are they up to? Mink, tell Mozo I want him to watch the reactor. You keep an eye on the General. Report to me if he does anything unusual._

_Mink: Roger._

Tseng made himself sound more confident than he felt. He wished Commander Veld would return, if for no other reason than to reassure him that he was making the right decisions. He'd never had to deal directly with Sephiroth before. How did one handle a thing – a man – like Sephiroth? What was going on in that cold mind of his, that heart without desires? Did he miss his old comrades, his peers? Was he planning, perhaps, to join Genesis and Hollander, as Lazard had done? The possibility was there… So shouldn't he, Tseng, be doing something to prevent it? But what? All the Turks put together were not capable of taking on Sephiroth. Zack might be… But Zack too was beginning to show signs of chafing under the yoke of his bondage to Shinra. His loyalty could not be taken for granted, either.

To move against them in any way might be to provoke the very turn of events Tseng feared. For now, then, Mink and Mozo would continue with their watching brief. And if it became necessary to take action…

Tseng would cross that bridge when he came to it.

* * *

_1__st__ October 2002 10.56 am_

The office was almost empty. Reno and Rude were still at work dismantling the last of the computers for the bunker. Hunter was over in the weapons room, cleaning guns. The cat was asleep under Rude's desk. On the wall, the minute hand of the clock ticked slowly towards eleven.

"I'm bored," said Reno.

The door hissed open and Tseng came running in. He looked closer to panic than they had ever seen him. "Who else is here?" he demanded.

"Just the Honey," said Reno, jumping to his feet. "What's happened?"

"I have no time to explain. Arm yourselves, get Hunter, and meet me at the helipad as fast as you can. Cavour will come with us too – " These last words were thrown over his shoulder; he was already halfway out the door.

Reno called after him, "Where are we going?"

"I'll brief you in the chopper. Hurry!"

Reno turned to Rude. "What lit his fuse?"

Rude shook his head. His eyes said _something bad's happened. Can't you feel it?_

"Yeah," Reno nodded, tightening his grip on his mag-rod. "Well, come on then, partner, don't just stand there. Let's move."

* * *

_Next chapter: Nibelheim_


	26. Nibelheim

**CHAPTER 26: NIBELHEIM**

**

* * *

**

They were passing over Corel when the smoke became visible. At first no more than a black wisp, curdling in the sky to the west like a drop of poison in a glass of clear water, it grew with frightening rapidity; by the time they had crossed the mountains roiling grey billows of ash filled half the sky. Swarms of glowing cinders swept past their windows, rattling against the glass. Reno was forced to swing upwind, bringing the helicopter in low and wide to keep the engines clear. Hot updrafts buffeted them from side to side. The Turks gripped their seats with both hands to avoid being thrown against each other. Hunter looked as if she was going to be sick: the colour had drained from her face, and she was shaking. When a gust of wind parted the dense smoke to give the Turks their first glimpse of the wall of flames, she whimpered like an animal and tucked her head between her knees.

They came to earth with a teeth-rattling jolt. Everyone unbuckled their seat-belts. Tseng threw open the cargo bay door, and at once the noise and the heat hit them like a blast furnace; Hunter was thrown back, or threw herself backwards, into the furthest corner of the hold and immediately curled up into the foetal position, face to the wall. Tseng called her name two, three times, ordering her back on her feet. He got no response. Reno heard him curse under his breath, "Why'd I bring her? I'm not thinking straight…."

Turning back to the others, Tseng took a bottle of water from the cooler, soaked his pocket handkerchief and tied it over his face. Those who had handkerchiefs of their own did likewise; those who did not, improvised. Reno tore a strip from his shirt. Tseng passed round more water, and gestured for them to pour it over their heads and their clothes.

"Search for survivors!" he shouted.

The thickness of the smoke made it impossible for the Turks to see more than a few metres in front of their faces. They quickly became separated as they blundered up the hillside and into the burning town. Reno found himself in front of a door and pushed it open. As soon as he set foot inside it he recognized it as the item shop where he'd bought Cissnei a silver bangle. Behind the counter the grandmother who had sold them the trinket sat slumped in her rocking chair, eyes closed as if she was sleeping. The back half of her head had been removed by a single clean cut.

Showers of sparks and liquid flame fell around him. He looked up, and saw that the ceiling was about to give way. Running outside, he stumbled over the body of the innkeeper lying face down in a tangle of his own entrails and veered away, across the square, into a house whose door had been ripped from its hinges. "Hello? Hello?" he called out. There was no answer but the voice of the fire, hissing, crackling. Tongues of flame were licking down the stairs. Bent almost double, he ran into the kitchen and saw a family huddled together beside the stove. The father had his head bent close to the two children. The mother was staring at Reno.

He pulled the wet strip of shirt from his mouth and shouted, "Hey!"

They did not move.

He could see no wounds, no blood. Sephiroth appeared not to have touched them. They must have suffocated when the firestorm sucked the oxygen from the room.

Reno himself was finding it hard to breathe. He ran back outside and looked around, straining to catch sight of the others. The smoke was blurring his vision. He rubbed his stinging eyes. When he looked again, he saw a naked, headless doll with rigid limbs lying near his foot. Some child's toy –

No. It was a baby.

_Stop looking at it!_

Tearing his eyes from the broken thing, he ran, shouting for Rude, for Tseng, for anyone.

When Tseng had told him on the helipad that they were going to Nibelheim, Reno had nearly refused. Now, he wished he had.

Despite the cloth tied across his nose and mouth, he could feel the lining of his lungs blistering. Under his feet the ground was so hot that the crepe soles of his boots had softened and become sticky. Worst of all, though, was the smell, the oily, sooty, sweetish reek of charcoal and burnt flesh that made him gag on every breath he took.

From across the square he heard Rude's voice calling, "Help me!"

Reno ran to him. "There's a kid under there," said Rude, pointing at a heap of smoking rubble. "He spoke to me. Help me lift this -"

Together they heaved a couple of fallen beams aside. Rude dropped to his knees and brushed the ash from the boy's nose and mouth. The right side of his face had been badly burnt, but Reno recognised him: it was Cissnei's weird kid, the one who saw ghosts everywhere.

"I got you," Rude rasped. He slipped one arm under the boy's shoulders, the other under his knees, and tried to straighten up. The boy's chest convulsed in a spasm. His head dropped sideways; his eyes rolled back; his limbs tensed and then grew slack.

"No," said Rude. "No – Reno, help me – "

Stooping, he laid the child back on the ground, knelt beside him, took a deep breath and blew into the boy's mouth. The limp body heaved. "Do his heart," he said to Reno.

"He's gone, Rude."

"No – "

For several minutes, while Reno watched, Rude fought to breathe life back into the dead child. Then he sank back on his heels, coughing. He spat black phlegm onto the ground, took off his sunglasses, wiped his watering eyes. "OK," he said to himself, "Keep going." Standing up, he plunged into the thickening smoke and was lost to sight before Reno could follow.

Reno turned round. Not far away he saw Tseng standing alone, staring into the smouldering ruin of the water tower. A pair of giant metal barrel-hoops, all that remained of the tank, were clearly visible glowing white hot among the orange coals. Tseng appeared to be mesmerized by the sight. His hair had come loose from its ponytail and was blowing about in the hot wind. His arms hung like dead weights at his sides. Falling sparks had eaten holes in the shoulders and sleeves of his dark jacket; through these little holes the pristine white of his shirt could be seen.

Reno went over to him. "Boss, it's hopeless."

Tseng did not respond. Reno had to repeat himself, leaning forward to shout in Tseng's ear.

"Yes," said Tseng. His voice was flat, his eyes elsewhere.

"Well, what should we do?"

"I don't know what to do."

_He's zoning out_, Reno realized.

Panic seized him. Grabbing Tseng by the arms, he shook him and yelled, "Don't do this to us, Boss! Not now! C'mon! Snap out of it!"

A familiar voice rang out in the distance, "Tseng! Reno!"

At the sound of his name Tseng's stiff body came to life in Reno's hands. Reno sagged with relief. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Commander Veld solidify out of the smoke and come striding towards them, closely followed by about thirty of Heidegger's troopers, several dozen technicians in lab coats, and Professor Hojo.

"Oh god," Tseng muttered, "_Him_?"

Veld walked straight up to them. Tseng and Reno stood at attention. Their Commander wasted no words. "Where's Sephiroth?"

"At the reactor, sir – "

"Why aren't you there?"

_Should we be? _Reno wondered. _Why?_

"But…everyone's dead there, sir," said Tseng. "And Zack's up there… Zack Fair went after him. He can deal with the General. Mozo's up there too. I thought we could do more good here – "

"Why are we wasting time?" Hojo cut in. "Veld, I need one of your people to escort my technician into the mansion and confirm that the equipment in the lab is functioning. You – red-head – "

Reno's entire body tensed with the violence of his internal _No. _Then he felt Tseng's steadying hand on his arm, and realized that the Boss had managed to pull himself out of his funk, thank god, and was stepping in.

"Let Cavour go," Tseng said, calling the younger Turk over. Veld briefly described to him where to find the master switch for the backup generators and how to get down to the basement lab; Hojo gave him a key. Cavour and the technician ran off, and Hojo turned back to the others, chuckling.

"Who would have thought I'd ever work in my first lab again? Just like old times, eh, Veld? Well, let's get a move on, we haven't got all day. You can bring the boy with you if you like."

It took Reno a couple of moments to realize that, by 'the boy', Hojo meant Tseng.

"Where are we going?" Tseng asked Veld.

"Up to the reactor. The Professor has a valuable sample stored there and he wants to retrieve it. The troopers are here to ensure its safety during transportation."

"All of them? What about the rescue? We -"

"The people of this town are not our priority," said Veld, cutting him short. "Company property is."

He glanced across at Reno – and Reno saw, in his face, that same look he remembered so well from the day they first went up together in the helicopter seven years ago, the suggestion that more was going on with this iceberg of a man than met the eye.

Hojo now spoke again. "This one," he pointed at Reno, "And that one – " he swung round to indicate Rude, who was walking towards them, "Can carry on searching for survivors. If they find any they must take them to the mansion."

"Mink's up there with a few already," said Tseng.

"Just a moment," said Veld, as if he were thinking of something entirely different. "Reno, a word with you. And you, Rude." He cupped one hand under Reno's elbow, put the other hand on Rude's shoulder, and drew them a little aside. In an undertone meant for their ears only, he said, "It would be better if there were no survivors. You understand me?"

Reno and Rude looked into their Chief's eyes, and nodded.

"Tell the others," said Veld.

"Chop chop," Hojo called out. "We're wasting time here. Let's go."

.

_It would have been better for __me__ if there were no survivors_, thought Reno to himself an hour later.

He was climbing over a mess of broken bricks and charred timbers that had once been a house, looking for somewhere to sit. He needed a cigarette badly. His legs were shaking like a rookie's and he was furious with himself for being so weak, but there seemed to be no help for it.

Always before, when he'd killed someone, he'd been able to look them in the eye while he did it.

Some had gone down fighting. Some had begged to live. Some of them had pissed themselves. None of them had died willingly. Not like the one he'd killed just now.

A white gleam caught his eye, and he turned his head to see a toilet, of all random things, standing shiny and solid in the midst of the wreckage, not a crack or chip anywhere on it. _It's weird how that happens_, he thought. It seemed like in every disaster there was always some unlikely object, like a crystal vase, or a newborn kitten, that somehow survived unscathed.

Turning away from the toilet, he continued to pick his way across the hot, shifting rubble until his feet touched earth. Ahead of him was a low stone wall, relatively undamaged. Here he sat down, and took out his packet of cigarettes. The sweet smell of the tobacco alone was enough to begin calming his nerves. He drew one, put it between his lips, and fumbled in his pocket for his mako lighter.

Why should it have been so hard to kill for mercy's sake, when killing to order had always come so easily? He had had to force himself to look at that raw, burnt face, its eyes and teeth a terrible white against the blackened skin, and he had taken great care to make sure the shot was clean, though his stomach was rising in his throat and his hands were shaking and he wanted nothing more than to run away. And afterwards it had felt wrong to him to leave the body like that, open to the elements for the flies and the monsters to feed on, so he had done his best to cover it up, piling the chunks of concrete with his gloved hands until he had built a sort of little funeral mound out of the ruins of what had once been someone's house.

And when he was done he had pulled off his gloves and stuffed them in his pocket and turned and walked away until he had come to this wall, where he was sitting now, trying to light his cigarette, but his damn clumsy fingers just would not do what they were told; he kept flicking the lighter and getting nothing, and suddenly it all seemed so fucking _ridiculous_ to him that here he was, unable to raise one tiny spark while all around him an entire town was in flames, that he burst out laughing.

He wished Rude were with him to share the joke.

He wished this laughing didn't have to hurt so much. All that smoke he'd inhaled. Felt like his ribs were splitting.

He sure as hell hoped there'd be no more survivors.

.

But there were survivors. Mink had managed to save about a dozen, right at the beginning of Sephiroth's rampage, and had taken them to safety up at the mansion. As night began to close in Reno made his way there and found them scattered on the front lawn: Mink was kneeling over an badly-burned teenager who might once have been pretty; Rude was helping a old man take a drink from a bottle of water, and Cavour was re-bandaging a deep sword cut on a woman's arm.

Mink jumped to her feet when she saw Reno approach, and ran over to him. "Give me your Cure materia," she demanded. "We're all out." She was as tall as he was, and equally broad-shouldered.

Reno shot a hard look at the back of Rude's head, but Rude didn't turn round. "The Chief said there should be no survivors," he told her, keeping his voice low.

Mink's jaw tightened. "Just hand over the materia, Reno. They need it." Her eyes dared him to challenge her.

The last thing Reno felt like doing right now was getting into fight with one of his colleagues. Or maybe that was the second last thing… because the _very_ last thing he want to do right now was to take out his gun and shoot that old man, or that injured woman, or that dying girl, in front of everyone's eyes. No, he couldn't do it. Let the Chief sort this one out. Reno had had enough for one day.

Popping the materia from its slot, he gave it to Mink. "That's all I've got."

"Let's hope it works," she said, running back to the unconscious girl, whose breath had begun to rattle in the back of her throat.

Reno walked over to Cavour and crouched beside him. "What does she mean? Materia always works."

Cavour shook his head. "That's what I thought, too. But I'm starting to wonder. It's like they don't _want_ it to work. Like they'd rather – "

"Here comes the Chief now," said Rude.

Troopers had run ahead to hold open the iron gates. Veld and Hojo led the way; Tseng walked at their heels, followed by Hojo's technicians carrying two laden stretchers. Mozo was with them, dragging what looked like Angeal's sword. The rest of the troopers brought up the rear.

"What are you doing out here?" Hojo asked the Turks. "I told you to take the survivors into the mansion."

Rude began, "The monsters – " but was cut off by Mink saying, "They don't want to go in there, sir. They think the mansion is haunted."

"What they think is of no importance," said Hojo. "I need them for my experiments."

Mink's face stiffened. "What?"

"You're not serious?" exclaimed Cavour.

"These people have done nothing to Shinra," Mink declared. "You can't treat them like criminals."

Reno kept his eyes trained on their Commander. Veld's expression was carefully neutral, and perhaps to the troopers and technicians it looked as if he was indifferent, as if this was just another job - but any of his Turks would have recognized the anger in those thin lips tightly pressed together, the disappointment in the almost imperceptible furrowing of his brows. His look demanded, _Why did you disobey me?_

Professor Hojo did not trouble himself to give Mink a reply. Flipping back the sheet that covered the body on the first stretcher, he leaned over, took hold of a tanned, heavily-muscled forearm and felt for the pulse at the wrist. Then he nodded approvingly. "Impressive. I was sure he would die on the way down here. Commander, could you shine your light on this specimen?"

The beam of Veld's torch illuminated a face blue-lipped from loss of blood. There was a scar like a four-pointed star on the left cheek. Hojo took a pencil from his pocket and pushed up one of the eyelids. "I think he may come round soon. Such resilience! Not really surprising, though, when I consider what short work he made of my finest samples only a few months ago. What a stroke of luck to get the ideal specimen – "

Mozo could keep his mouth shut no longer. "That's Zack! Mink! – Rude! - Cavs! – Reno! – Can't you see? It's Zack!"

_Don't listen, Reno. Look the other way._

"And this one," said Hojo, moving to the next stretcher. "How determined he is to live! And you say he _threw_ Sephiroth into the reactor core? Is that right, Turk?" He directed the question at Mozo, while simultaneously twitching the sheet to uncover a shock of spikey blond hair.

_Veev's grunt! You weren't expecting that. Looks like his luck's run out at last. Still, he's already lived longer than he had any right to expect –_

"Imagine," Hojo chuckled. "A mere nobody, overpowering the great Sephiroth. Extraordinary. Before today I would have said 'impossible'. I wonder what his secret is? What a marvelous world we live in, eh, Veld? So much to discover." He flipped the sheet back over the grunt's face. "Come along then, let's get started."

The technicians picked up the stretchers and began to move towards the front door of the mansion.

"Commander!" cried Mozo. "Stop them! That's Zack!"

"It's Zack," Mink echoed.

"Come along, Turks, to work, to work," Hojo chivvied them.

"It's Zack!" Mozo repeated desperately, as if Veld did not know already; as if saying the name enough times would somehow make a difference.

"Sir, why are you letting this happen?" cried Mink. "All these people…"

Cavour said, "Commander, no – "

Rude said, "This is too dirty…."

_And you, Reno, you who are trying so hard to see nothing, to think nothing, to pretend that this isn't happening and that you aren't here… What you really think is that this is sod's fucking law. Don't you? It would have to be Zack Fair, of all people, to back you into this corner._

_ You've wished him dead often enough. So - you think he deserves this?_

_ If you put your hand on that stretcher and help carry him inside to what you know Hojo's going to do to him – or if you just stand here and do nothing, if you look the other way – what does that make you?_

Commander Veld was trying to explain it to them: "What's happened here today cannot be allowed to leak out. Sephiroth has always been the public face of Shinra. His image and the company's reputation are identical in people's minds. It is our job to ensure that both those reputations remain intact."

"But sir," said Tseng, "The town – "

"It'll be rebuilt. It's been done before."

"But that's not possible – "

"Nothing is impossible. Do as you're told, Tseng."

Reno, whose mind had been desperately ferreting about for a loophole, now spoke. "But Chief, it'll look weird if all the townspeople disappear. Can't have a town with no people - "

"That's been taken care of."

Mozo, meanwhile, had grabbed hold of Zack's stretcher with both hands and dug his heels in. Hojo saw this and tutted. "You are being impertinent, Turk. Really, Veld, I would have thought that over the last thirty years you would have improved your training methods at least a little. I'd like to conclude this business as quickly as possible, the way we did the last time."

"Mozo, you're out of order," said Veld. "These people are a liability. We can't leave any witnesses."

Mozo did not let go of the stretcher. "Then I'll shoot them," he said –

_Too late, _thought Reno, _too late, too late – _

"- If you order me to. Quick and clean. I'll do that. But I won't let Zack be taken in there to be tortured by this – " Mozo looked Hojo up and down, searching for the word – "Ghoul."

"There's always a fool somewhere standing in the way of progress," sighed Hojo.

"I've given you an order, Mozo," said Veld.

"I won't do it," Mozo replied.

Hojo waved an airy hand. "Commander, a thought has just occurred to me. It's been quite a while since I had a Turk to work with. Another specimen, or six, would make a very welcome addition to my collection. Especially since you seem unable to do much with them. I've always thought that boy of yours, in particular, had some fascinating potentialities - "

"Don't threaten me," said Veld. His anger, which he had held back while talking to Mozo, was unleashed now.

Hojo remained unruffled. "Then get your people under control, and stop impeding my work."

Somewhere in his consciousness Reno was dimly aware that he was holding his breath. His heart was pounding so violently that he could barely hear what the Commander and the Professor were saying. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Tseng and Rude reaching inside their jackets. His own hand moved towards his mag-rod -

"Let's go," said Hojo to the stretcher bearers.

The two technicians tried to move forward. Mozo held fast. "Guys!" he cried. "Don't let him do this!"

All of them – Rude, Reno, Cavour, Tseng – looked at the Commander. Only Mink stirred her foot a step, as if about to join Mozo's protest.

"I haven't got time for this," said Hojo.

He took a small pistol from the inside pocket of his lab coat and shot Mozo in the chest.

Mozo fell on top of Zack; the two technicians, startled by the gun's sudden report, let go of the stretcher. It thudded to the ground. Zack groaned.

Uttering a cry that might have been Mozo's name, Mink flung herself onto the grass beside him. With one hand she felt for the pulse in his neck; with the other she pressed down on his chest, trying to stem the rush of blood.

Hojo looked round the ring of Turk guns aiming at his head, and smiled. "So little like you, Veld, aren't they? Perhaps you need to explain to them exactly how these things are done. After all, you are the one with the experience."

Mink had taken off her jacket and was pressing it down hard on Mozo's wound. "Sir!" she called to Veld, "He's not dead. He's alive - "

The other Turks held their weapons steady. "Just give the word, Commander," said Tseng.

"You're right," said Veld to Hojo. "They're not like me. Rude, Cavour, help Mink with Mozo. Reno, go ahead and start up the chopper. Tseng, look after them. Take everyone back to Midgar. Say nothing of this."

Disbelievingly, obediently, they lowered their guns.

Hojo pointed at Mozo. "That specimen is mine – "

"No," Veld growled. "You can't have him. I'll stay. I'll do this with you. But my team are finished here. Move!" he roared at them.

.

Afterwards – long afterwards, years later, when they were finally able to talk about it - Reno said that when the Commander ordered them to move it felt like an autopilot switch had been flipped: his legs started running of their own accord. Rude said, I know what you mean, and Tseng said, we were well trained. He was the best, the Commander.

But maybe they were just making excuses, re-writing the past. The Commander had always insisted on shouldering any blame. If someone wanted to take a shot at a Turk, he'd make sure that they kept their heads down, while he put his own head above the parapet. That was the way things ran in the office. That was what the Commander was for.

Reno's lungs were bursting by the time he reached the helicopter. It was covered with a thick layer of ash. Inside, Hunter was still curled against the bulkhead. She'd gone to sleep. Lucky her. He slid into the pilot's seat and started the engine. A few minutes later the others materialized out of the drifting smoke. Rude and Cavour were carrying Mozo between them, while Mink maintained the pressure on his wound. Tseng bought up the rear.

Reno went into the back of the helicopter, found some army blankets and spread them across the floor. Hunter woke up, rubbing her eyes. Gently they lifted Mozo inside. When Hunter saw the blood-soaked jacket on his chest, she began to scream. "Be quiet," said Tseng. But she couldn't. He hit her on the side of the head and knocked her out cold. Then he went forward and took the seat next to Reno.

"Go," he said.

The heavy machine leapt into the air and shot forward.

The rhythm of the rotors had a language all its own, insistent, insidious. Earmuffs couldn't block it out completely. As the blades went round they whispered to Reno _youlefthimthere, youlefthimthere, youshityoushityoushit..._

Nobody spoke. The silent reproach of their consciences was deafening.

Finally, Tseng had to say something. "It's not his fault. It's my fault. I let this happen."

"What difference does it make now?" said Mink. "Can't you fly any faster, Reno? He's never going to make it to Midgar."

"We'll put down in Corel," said Tseng. "There's a man there sells materia."

"Hang on, Mozo," Cavour begged him.

The helicopter chopped through the night sky, and Mozo did hang on, minute by minute, across the moon-silvered mountain ridges and across the valleys lost in shadow, until, as they were coming down to earth in a meadow just outside Corel, he died.


	27. Aftermath

**CHAPTER 27: AFTERMATH**

**

* * *

**

Extracts from the minutes of the emergency meeting of the Shinra Electric Company Board of Directors, 2nd October 2002.

Present - President Shinra, Vice-President Rufus, Palmer, Scarlett, Heidegger, Tuesti; Tseng, at the invitation of the President

Apologies: Veld, Hojo

_Item 1.1 Report on Nibelheim Incident_

Tseng of the Investigative Affairs Section of the Department of Administrative Research was invited to give a verbal report on the incident at Nibelheim that took place on the 1st inst. …

… _Item 1.12 Reconstruction of Nibelheim_

Heidegger proposed that responsibility for the reconstruction of Nibelheim be undertaken by the Department for Urban Development. Scarlet seconded motion. Tuesti objected that this would create significant setbacks in the schedule for the completion of Sector 6, even if additional funds were allocated for the project. Further discussion ensued, off the record. On the record, Palmer invited Tuesti to consider tendering his resignation; Tuesti declined the invitation. Motion passed nem con, one abstention. President provisionally accepted motion, amending it to read 'the Department for Urban Development shall carry out the work under the supervision of the Department of Administrative Research'.

_Item 1.13 Date for completion of reconstruction_

President set date for completion of Nibelheim reconstruction as 15th November 2002….

… _Item 4.1 Future of SOLDIER_

Scarlett proposed that the temporary transfer of responsibility for SOLDIER to the Department of Public Safety Maintenance be confirmed as a permanent subsumption of SOLDIER within the regular armed forces. Palmer seconded the motion. Motion passed nem con, one abstention. President accepted motion….

* * *

_Surveillance Duty_

Aerith sings to herself as she waters the flowers, and sometimes shakes her hips a little, imagining she's dancing.

Tseng sits quietly in the rafters, watching her. He's never done this before. He's always come in through the front door. But he wants to treasure this image of her, his happy girl, in the little time she has left before he breaks the news.

The official announcement is coming out today. _Killed in action. _He knows he has to tell her first; and though he cannot tell her everything, what he can tell her will be the truth.

_He sacrificed himself to save others. _

Then what?

_ After a while it won't hurt so much._

_ There'll be other boys. Other loves. _

_ You'll get over it, you'll survive._

_ I'm sorry…._

What can he say that won't make her despise him?

Meanwhile, on the 66th floor of the tall building far, far above Tseng's head, Reno sits facing the Chief, and he says, "I'm not asking where she is, sir. I don't want to know. I'm just saying she shouldn't have to hear it on the news. You need to tell her. And you need to tell her about Mozo."

_

* * *

_

_Shinra Electric Company Press Release, 3__rd__ October 2002_

_Two days ago the terrorist group AVALANCHE launched an attack on the mako reactor in Nibelheim, resulting in lengthy power outages in those areas relying on supplies from Shinra Number One. An attempt was also made to burn down the town, and a number of monsters were set loose on the innocent townspeople. It is our sad duty to announce that the Hero of the Wutai War, General Sephiroth, and SOLDIER 1__st__ Class Zack Fair lost their lives defending the people of Nibelheim from this senseless outrage. Thanks to their heroic sacrifice, casualties were kept to a minimum, though some slight damage to the fabric of the town was sustained. President Shinra has taken the people of Nibelheim under his direct protection and will ensure that all necessary steps for their comfort and wellbeing are put in place. However, until the full extent of the damage has been confirmed, and until it can be ascertained that all monsters have been cleared from the surrounding mountains, the town of Nibelheim has been placed under quarantine. Communication services in and out of Nibelheim have been suspended until further notice. People concerned for families or friends who may be in Nibelheim are encouraged to call this number…_

In Corel there was a cheap hotel overlooking the coal train tracks. In this cheap hotel there was a small back bedroom, and in this small back bedroom a dark-haired girl and a wiry old man were watching the news on a grainy black and white TV. She was lying in the bed, her broken ankle propped up on a pillow. All over her body bruises were ripening from purple to green. It had cost Zangan most of the gil in his wallet to have the sword slash down her chest sewn together and cured with a potion; there'd been no money left over to treat injuries that would heal on their own. He was sitting cross-legged in the middle the floor, his back perfectly straight from a lifetime of martial arts training. He'd told her she was lucky she hadn't died. She wasn't so sure.

She'd learnt a lot of things this last week or so; she'd grown up fast. For starters, she'd learnt there was no such thing as a hero. For another, she'd finally learnt to let go of that childhood dream. Friends moved away, moved on, forgot the promises they'd made. Nobody was going to come and rescue her. Zangan had brought her this far; he had saved her skin, she supposed – saved her beating heart, saved her charged mind, saved her skills and her memories. She couldn't really say, though, that her old teacher had saved her _life._ That was buried under the ashes of Nibelheim. She'd have to begin a new one now.

She didn't need Zangan to tell her that there was no point in opening her mouth to expose the lies. No one would want to believe her. And if she got too loud, drew too much attention to herself, they'd find her, those steel-eyed people in the dark blue suits.

But now she knew one more thing. She'd just found it out. She knew the name of her enemy's enemy. That was a start.

* * *

Veld kept his Turks busy in the weeks that followed, assigning them missions that would once have fallen to SOLDIER. He partnered Turks who had been in Nibelheim with those who had not, and sent them into the Sector Seven slums to clear out nests of monsters, or down to the marine caves in Mideel to look for naturally occurring materia, or across to Gongaga to eliminate a flock of Genesis copies, or into South Corel to pursue AVALANCHE sightings. He flew them to Icicle Inn to help rescue the survivors of a real, and equally deadly, avalanche; he sent them off to Bone Village to dig for Ancient artefacts; he had them unloading crates of ammunition on the docks at Junon, giving master classes at the Academy, re-organising the filing, learning to pilot submarines, surveying the woods south of Junon, anything and everything he could think of. If they still had time on their hands, he put them through their paces in the SIM room on what had been the SOLDIER floor, or flew them far out into the badlands and made them orienteer their way back to Midgar. At night they fell into their beds exhausted.

And though they all knew that Mozo was dead, somehow, even for those who had been with him when he died, it didn't quite seem real. He could as easily have been out on a mission. They knew he wasn't coming back – and yet sometimes they thought they saw him going down the corridor, or getting into the elevator. And sometimes one of them would see his bushy head of brown hair walking through a crowded street, and would hurry to catch him up, to grab his shoulder and laugh and say, hey, I knew it couldn't be true. I just knew it.

But he always eluded their touch, like the ghost that he was.

.

With Mozo dead, Skeeter was assigned to help Rude and Reno complete the set-up of the bunker's communications system. He didn't have Mozo's skills with wires and screwdrivers, but he was determined to learn. At nearly nineteen, Skeet was no longer the pretty boy he'd been two years ago when he joined the Turks. He had grown taller, and his shoulders had filled out. His jaw was leaner, his nose broader, his brow heavier. Hard work and hard living had rubbed the blush from his cheeks. His curls, though, were still golden.

One day in the middle of December – it might have been morning, or afternoon, or midnight; they lost all track of time inside the plate and just kept working until Tseng called them home or they were too tired to go on – the three of them were on a break, eating sandwiches they'd bought at a stall on the way in, and drinking coffee from a thermos Rosalind had filled, when Skeeter, looking round the windowless concrete space, laughed and said, "Shit, it's like being buried alive, isn't it? I sure pity whoever it is the Chief plans on keeping down in this airless hole. Is it for AVALANCHE prisoners, d'you think?"

Reno and Rude exchanged glances.

"Don't you get it, Skeet?" said Reno. "It's for us."

Skeeter's eyebrows shot up towards his hairline. "Us? But why? For what?"

"The Chief didn't say," said Rude. "But you never know. It's best to be prepared. Just in case."

* * *

Pages from Aviva's diary, 22nd December, 2002

_Is it the work, or is it me?_

_I mean, is the work really getting dirtier? Or am I just seeing it more clearly? I never thought that Shinra was perfect. I always knew it would be like a bigger and shinier Corel. The difference is that what we're doing here isn't __just__ about greed and money and power, even if it is about all of those things too. And I __still__ believe that what we're doing here is worth doing. The more I see of AVALANCHE, the more deeply I believe it. Shinra __can__ build a better future for everybody. But a lot of mistakes get made on the way. It's not easy._

_ I think about Mozo a lot. Would I have the courage to do what he did? I like to think I would. I guess everybody thinks that about themselves. But what if you're in that situation and you don't realize it? What if I've already been in a situation like that, and didn't know? With Dr Rayleigh I thought I was doing the right thing, but I know now that more than one person has died as a direct result of AVALANCHE getting that data disk. _

_ I wish I could ask Mozo what he was thinking. I'm not supposed to know that it was Professor Hojo who killed him. I don't really know all the details. R told me a bit. He said that Hojo told Moe to do something and Moe said No. What thing? I asked. He said he couldn't tell me but I kept asking and finally he says, something wrong, OK, and now he's dead and Hojo got someone else to do it. And R said, Moe was the one telling me the first rule was never to get involved. _

_ Maybe you've been wondering, Diary, why I don't write about R much any more. I would like to tell you it's because my feelings have changed. Sadly…_

27th December

_Special day today! Charlie was in town and he came to take me out to dinner like he always does, just him and me. I don't know why he's taken a shine to me. Maybe it's because I'm the baby of the office. Or maybe it's because he's kind of responsible for breaking my leg. R calls him my sugar daddy. I should be grateful R even __notices__ that __somebody__ wants my company. I'd like to think that R is just the teeniest, weeniest, tiniest bit jealous - not of me, I mean, but of our friendship. If that's what we are. _

_ Anyway it isn't like that with me and Charlie. Or maybe it is kind of like what a dad would be. He makes me put on one of those dresses I never get to wear and takes me out to an expensive restaurant and he spoils me. He asks me about my boyfriends and when I tell him I don't have any he says nobody is good enough for Charlie's girl. He makes me laugh, the way R used to make me laugh when he was happy._

_ I talked to him about the dirty business stuff. About Mozo. I asked him if he knows what really happened with Moe and he said he knows as much as he needs to. He said that this is a war and that we were soldiers and that soldiers have to accept that they're going to see and do things they might not want or choose. Well, how could I forget him at Junon? __He was having a blast, if you'll forgive the pun, dear diary. So I said, 'but you love it, Charlie, and Mr Tseng always says that we should take pride in our work, not pleasure'. And he said 'Tseng needs to learn how to let his hair down'. I shouldn't have laughed but I did._

_ After that, though, he got serious, and I want to write down what he said word for word so that I always remember it. He said, 'now you listen to old Charlie' (he always calls himself old but he can't really be __that__ old. 37? 38?). 'I have dirtier hands than anybody', he said. 'All those years when I only did it for the money. But in this world nobody has clean hands either. It's only a matter of degree. The important thing is to pick the right side and to stick with it through thick and thin. It's no good saying, "I'll do this but I won't do that". You have to do whatever it takes. It's all or nothing. That's what it means to make a commitment to something bigger than yourself.'_

_ I said, 'so why did you pick our side? Why do you stick with us?' He said, 'because of the Chief'. Which I totally understand. _

_ After that he said he wasn't going to talk shop any more, and made me tell him about the new band I went to see with Hunter and Cavs…_

.

While Aviva was busy writing this, Tseng and Charlie sat facing each other over two tall glasses of dry sherry. The end of Charlie's cigar glowed orange in the lamplit gloom of Augusto's den.

"I'm surprised it's Wutai," Tseng was saying. "I wouldn't have thought they would want to provoke us again so soon."

"Godo doesn't know," Charlie replied. "The AVALANCHE leadership have presented themselves to him as investors. Said they wanted to build a toy factory. He's put them up in the Pagoda. We'll have to rebuild it afterwards, of course, as a goodwill gesture."

"Next week, then?"

"That's the plan."

"And you're going alone?"

"I need a back-up," said Charlie. "I was hoping it would be you."

Tseng looked down at his folded hands, and took a while before he answered. "Did you speak to the Commander about this?"

"I thought I'd ask you first."

"Thank you. I'm flattered, but I'm the wrong choice. I'd stick out like a sore thumb."

"You! You even speak the language, don't you? Didn't Veld make you learn it?"

"Not like a native. I've never mastered the accent. I'd be stranger than a foreigner to them. They'd ask too many questions. I've never been to Wutai, Charlie, and I'd rather – I'd rather you took Knox. He could pass himself off as an ordinary tourist."

"Whatever you say." Charlie took a sip of his sherry. "You're the boss."

Neither of them spoke for a while. Charlie finished his glass and called the girl to pour him another. She brought them a bowl of salted nuts and put it on the table between them.

"You've done a remarkable job," Tseng observed.

Charlie grinned. "Sure, you can rely on the Legend."

"It was Reno who suggested you."

"So he has flashes of common sense, eh? How is he?"

"Surviving."

"Yes," said Charlie, "I know what that feels like. By the way, I wanted to talk to you about your little one. Aviva. I just had dinner with her. She's having some struggles with her conscience. Mozo's death has really got to her. She puts on that perky act, but she runs pretty deep. You need to keep an eye on her."

Tseng inclined his head, acknowledging the advice. Then he smiled his tight smile and said, "You know what never ceases to amaze me, Charlie? This knack you have for getting people to trust you."

Charlie laughed.

"No one else could have got anywhere near AVALANCHE," Tseng went on. "And now perhaps the end is in sight. Do you think this will finish them?"

Charlie allowed a mouthful of smoke to escape his lips. "Honestly? I think it'll hurt them pretty badly. But the end? I don't know. Is it ever the end? Human nature being what it is?"

* * *

_Extracts from the Minutes of the Shinra Electric Company Board of Directors' Meeting, 4__th__ January 2003_

_Present__: P_resident Shinra, Vice-President Rufus, Heidegger, Scarlet, Palmer, Tuesti, Veld, Hojo

_Item 1: Destruction of AVALANCHE HQ, Wutai_

Veld distributed a report on the successful completion of the mission to destroy the headquarters of the terrorist group, AVALANCHE, in Wutai.

_Item 1.2: Commendation of Operatives_

Veld recommended for special commendation the agent known as Legend, in recognition of his key role in the mission. VP Rufus seconded motion. Motion passed nem con. President accepted motion...

…_Item 2.3: Compensation to Wutai_

Veld proposed funds be set aside to pay for the reconstruction of the Sacred Pagoda destroyed in the mission against AVALANCHE. Tuesti seconded motion. Palmer argued against the motion on the grounds that all available funds were required by the space program, which is now in its final stages. Scarlet seconded Palmer, arguing that it was naïve to believe Lord Godo did not know he was giving shelter to terrorists. Motion was not put to the vote, as President imposed veto beforehand…

…_Item 4.1: Reconstruction of Nibelheim_

Tuesti reported the reconstruction of Nibelheim was completed slightly behind schedule, on the 20th December 2002. Bad weather had held up the works….

.

The news broadcasts that day were joyous, announcing a major victory against AVALANCHE and the beginning of the end of the war against terrorism. Down in the Goblins Bar, however, the boys and girls in the blue serge suits leaned closer round their corner table and reminded each other that nothing should ever be taken for granted.

Knox, who'd bought the first round, told them Charlie wasn't sure he'd succeeded in eliminating the key leaders. He'd killed three people who _might_ have been Elfe, Shears, and Fuhito – but they were so far away from him when the explosion went off that it was impossible to tell for certain, and afterwards there wasn't enough left to make a positive identification.

"The woman was sick," Hunter chipped in. "I've met her. Remember?"

Knox nodded. "Charlie thought she looked like she was deteriorating – "

"Like Genesis?" suggested Cavour. "Maybe they used the same process on her that Hollander used with Genesis. Maybe they _are_ connected."

"And that could be why they wanted the disk from Dr Rayleigh last year," Aviva added. "Maybe they thought it could cure her."

Reno swilled the dregs of his beer round the bottom of his glass. "As long as Charlie snuffed _her, _we're good. I'd settle for that right now."

"She did seem to be the glue holding the two men together," Knox agreed.

"When_ I_ fought them," Hunter chipped in, "She seemed to be all the big guy cared about."

Rude said hoarsely, "AVALANCHE…. "

Uttered like a curse, the word hung in the air. Round the table the others fell silent, waiting for him to finish the thought.

He said, "It's like – a cancer."

"You better believe it." Knox took up Rude's metaphor, "Leave one or two cells alive, and it'll come back deadlier than before. Have we really got rid of them? I guess we'll just have to wait and see."

* * *

_Page from Aviva's diary, 3__rd__ February, 2003_

_A guy in P.R. has asked me out on a date._

_You may have noticed, diary, by the way I never mention them, that I don't get asked on lots of dates. Now I know I'm not the hottest girl in town, but to tell the truth, I'm not that bad, either. I even have boobs now. Small, but there. So I honestly don't think it's my ugly mug turning them away. None of us gets asked out much. I mean, us girl Turks. The suit puts guys off. I can't say I exactly blame them. It takes a lot of guts for a man to go up to a girl and ask for her number when he knows she's got a gun under her jacket and can shoot to kill. _

_ Or maybe it __is__ us who put them off, a bit. I get the feeling the other girls aren't that interested. Maybe Hunter is; I don't know what she gets up to when she stays out all night, but if she's got somebody, he's not in Shinra. I haven't seen her look twice at anyone in the building. Mink…does she even have those kind of feelings? And Roz says that part of her life died with Phil. _

_ It's different for the guys. The secretaries and the receptionists are all over them. Even Mr Tseng - I mean, of __course__ nobody flirts with __him__ the way they do with the others. God, who'd dare? But I've seen how when he talks to them, they gaze at him all doe-eyed and transfixed like they're an animal caught in his headlights. _

_ You can't blame the guys for taking advantage. They're only human. _

_ But what really makes me so angry, and so sad, is when one of those girls from one of the other departments comes up to me and says, 'oh, you're so lucky to be working with those guys', and I think, you don't know anything, you just don't know._

_ So anyway, that was a bit off the topic of my date. If I go. I was in the exhibition room looking at the model of the Shinra 26, and this guy just comes up to me and goes, 'hi'. Which, as I said, doesn't happen often. So I said hi. We talked about the space program for a while – he's working on that account – and then he told me he knew my name and that his name was Louis and would I like to have dinner with him sometime, like maybe tomorrow? I think I might have accidentally said yes._

_ I ought to make the effort. He seems nice enough. Nice looking. Fair hair. Good teeth. Not tall, but taller than me (like who isn't?). Soft hands. Nice nice nicey-nice. But, sadly, nice just doesn't cut it. Not when you work with the kind of guys I work with. Not once you've known someone like R…._

_._

_Moments from the Present: Work takes all forms_

Commander Veld has finally arranged for Reno to give Rufus flying lessons.

"Heads up, V.P." says Reno as they climb together into the cockpit. "No way am I letting anyone else pilot this helicopter while I'm in it, unless and until I trust them one hundred and ten per cent to know what they're doing. So don't push it. I'll let you know when you're ready, not the other way round. Understood?"

"That should be by the end of the week," replies Rufus, "If you're any good as an instructor."

Meanwhile, down where the sky is just a bad dream, Tseng takes another letter from Aerith and turns it over in his hand. The envelope of this one is lilac-coloured, sealed with a stamp of ruby wax.

"I know you'd never read them," she says. "But I like the wax. It's pretty, don't you think?"

That makes twenty-six letters so far, one every week for the last six months, stacking up in a tray in a locked drawer of his desk. He has stopped objecting. "I don't want to make you a liar," she told him early on, "So let's not discuss it any more. Just take the letters. When you can, give them to him."

What does she know, exactly? How _can_ she know?

He may have not told her the whole truth, but she is not being completely honest with him, either.

Meanwhile, high above the seething grey clouds, Reno is obliged to admit that his pupil has talent. The V.P's quick on the uptake: Reno doesn't have to tell him anything twice. Sometimes half an explanation is all he needs. His eyes miss nothing. At this rate, the target of flying solo by the end of the week isn't looking so unrealistic. And he seems to be enjoying himself, though with Rufus it's always hard to know exactly what 'fun' means.

However, after they've landed at the end of the lesson, an odd thing happens – such a little, trivial thing that if it had happened with anyone else Reno probably wouldn't even have noticed. On their way out of the helicopter, the V.P. stumbles, and Reno, ever the bodyguard, automatically reaches out to stop him falling. At the touch of Reno's hand on his arm, Rufus flinches as if he has been scalded, and his lips pull back in a snarl. It's over in a split-second; Rufus is immediately cool again, smoothing his sleeve before jumping down to the tarmac, disdaining all offers of assistance. Reno is left wondering if he only imagined he saw that look on Rufus' face. He isn't sure what to call it. Anger? Fear?

Meanwhile, Tseng walks to the Sector 5 train station, his hand on the letter in his pocket. He wonders if Zack and Private Strife are dead yet. For their sakes, and for his own sake, he hopes so.

* * *

_Author's note: I hope that wasn't too episodic and disjointed. _

_On to Rocket Town, where Rufus takes centre stage..._


	28. Rocket Town

**CHAPTER 28: ROCKET TOWN  
**_**In which Rufus complains about a number of things, and Tseng wonders what his problem is.**_

**_

* * *

_**

Attendance at the launch of Shinra Rocket Number 26 was by Presidential invitation only.

The day was perfect: a clear blue sky, with a few wispy clouds low on the horizon, a warm spring sun, and a cool breeze blowing off the mountains. Several hundred blue-uniformed troopers patrolled the nine or so square miles of perimeter fencing, keeping a careful watch on the hordes of the great unwashed assembling excitedly on the other side. Small children rode their father's shoulders; mothers unpacked picnics. Fingers wove through the chain link fence as people pressed their faces to the wire, gazing enviously, dreamily, at the large white marquee erected behind the viewing stands, where those powerful enough, rich enough, or lucky enough to be in possession of a gold-embossed invitation card were currently helping themselves to lunch at President Shinra's expense. The entrance flaps to the marquee had been tied back to catch the breeze; soldiers armed with submachine guns stood guard.

Inside the marquee, Rufus Shinra detached himself from the festivities and stepped out into the sunlight for a breath of fresh air. From the far side of the perimeter fence a cheer went up. The humble spectators had recognised their prince. Men and women called his name aloud. Girls squealed. Babies burst out crying.

Rufus raised a hand to shade his eyes, running his gaze along the fence. "How many of them do you think there are?" he asked his bodyguard, Hunter.

"At least five thousand, I'd say, sir."

"Where have they all come from?"

"Probably from all over the world. Are you surprised, sir? I'm surprised there aren't even more. The launch of the first man into space isn't something you see every day."

"Hmmph." Rufus lowered his hand to his shoulder and moved it in an approximation of a wave. The distant throng roared enthusiastically. Rufus went back into the marquee.

Almost at once beads of sweat began to form on his brow. It was too stuffy in here: the sun was beating down through the canvas, and the air was thick with the smells of cheese and wine, perspiring humanity, aftershave, powder and perfume. People shouted at each other over the din of competing conversations. The crowd was thickest around the buffet table, where a spit-roasted sucking pig with an apple in its mouth, a poached dolphin in dill sauce, and a whole cold baked chocobo formed the triple centerpiece and talking-point. The chocobo in particular was a masterpiece of the culinary arts: the chefs had painstakingly re-attached each of its yellow feathers, and had arched its neck in a coyly lifelike pose. Two large stuffed onions were now its eyes. Rufus contemplated the object for a moment with mild distaste, then turned to look around the tent.

"Where's Tseng?" he asked Hunter.

Waitresses in short black skirts were passing among the guests, carrying frosted champagne cocktails on silver trays. One came up to Rufus with an inquiring smile. He shook his head. She glanced past him at Hunter.

"She's working." Rufus waved the waitress away.

"There he is, sir," said Hunter, pointing across the sea of bobbing heads to the opposite side of the marquee, where Tseng was standing with their rookie, the whey-faced, cinnamon-haired Tys, failed motorbike thief and ex-gang leader, now suit-clad Shinra salary man.

At this moment Tys was the distinct object of Hunter's envy. Not only did he get to run about in the fresh air hobnobbing with Cid Highwind and the rocket technicians, while she was stuck dogging the V.P.'s footsteps, but he'd made himself something of a local hero yesterday during the rehearsals, when someone had attempted to steal the Tiny Bronco. While Cid spat rage and Tseng hesitated, Tys had given chase, sprinting after the stolen plane as it taxied along the grass, grabbing hold of the wing struts at the moment of take off, climbing onto the wing as it rose into the air, clambering into the cockpit at five hundred feet, and knocking the thief unconscious with a kick. Seating himself at the controls, he'd put on the headphones, picked up the radio transmitter, and laughed, "Look at me, man! I've never flown a plane before!"

"What?" Cid had almost wept into the mike. "You so much as put a scratch on my baby, you goddamn sonofabitch, I'll have your fucking testicles on a fucking plate. Now you listen to me and do exactly what I say…."

Talked down by Cid, Tys had landed the plane safely, and since then had been able to talk of nothing else but his moment of glory. Now, inside the hot and crowded marquee, he stood fidgeting at Tseng's side, trying to do what he had been told to do: be quiet, watch, and listen. Over on the far side of the marquee Commander Veld was multi-tasking, remaining tight by the President's side as they moved through the throng while keeping up a steady flow of communication with his subordinates through their wireless earpieces. This device was not something Tseng much cared for. He disliked the sensation of having a hard lump of plastic hooked into his ear, hampering his ability to hear what was going on around him. But it had its advantages. It did leave both one's hands free –

"Oh man, dude," Tys sighed, "I wish Reno could have been there to see me…"

The rookie's admiration for the Turk who'd nearly killed him had been growing to the point where it bordered almost on hero-worship, a development that Tseng viewed as both inevitable and regrettable. It was natural that boys like Tys should respond to the authority of violence. Commander Veld had his measure: with every beating Tys became more motivated, more obedient, more enthusiastic about the work. But the last thing Reno needed was somebody hanging around him who thought he could do no wrong. And the last thing the department needed was another Reno. Tseng had had to remind Tys three times already today to tuck in his shirt and straighten his tie.

"Don't address me like that," he rebuked the rookie now. "You've been with us nine months. There's no excuse."

"Sorry, sir," Tys mumbled.

"You did a good job yesterday, but don't get carried away. This assignment isn't over. Stay focused. Go down and check in with Rude, and then take a walk around the inner perimeter of the launch site. Watch for anything suspicious. Keep your eyes open."

"Roger, sir," said Tys, eagerly running off.

Who the plane-jacker had been, and what his motives were, they would never know: the kick from Tys' boot had caved in his skull, and he'd died without regaining consciousness. His heavy, homely features had made it clear that he was human, not a Genesis copy or a Raven. So - had he been a mere opportunistic thief, working alone? Or a man with an agenda to fulfil, and an organization behind him? Late yesterday afternoon one of the chief rocket engineers had come to Cid Highwind with the news that an oxygen tank had been tampered with. Were the two incidents connected? Whoever had attempted to sabotage the tank knew very little about rockets: the engineer had easily replaced the damaged tank with a spare, and the launch was scheduled to go ahead as planned in about – Tseng checked his watch – ninety minutes.

"_Another quarter of an hour,_" came the Commander's voice through his earpiece. _"Then we'll start moving them into the stands."_

"Roger," Tseng replied, continuing his quiet observation of the crowd.

President Shinra was impossible to lose sight of, strutting amongst his guests like a rooster in a barnyard. The other executives were scattered around the marquee. Heidegger in his green uniform had cornered a pretty little girl by the bar; Scarlet, wearing her trademark red, was chatting easily to a group of young men with military haircuts; Reeve was moving smoothly from group to group; Palmer, unmissable in yellow, a custard doughnut, was standing by the buffet, talking to the Headmaster of the Military Academy.

The invitation had clearly stated 'morning dress', and many of the male guests had obediently donned the obligatory charcoal tails, dove-grey waistcoats, and pin-striped trousers, their chins propped uncomfortably on high starched collars. Some, lacking the requisite social nous, had come in double-breasted yachting blazers and brown leather loafers and were now trying to brazen out their fashion faux pas. The women and girls were dressed as if for a wedding, flouncing pastel layers of gossamer silk; big picture hats framed painted faces; diamonds glittered everywhere.

Tseng knew every single one of them, by face, by name, by the catalogue of their vices – a tedious and repetitive volume.

He saw that Rufus was making his way over, with Hunter following close behind. The boy was wearing his usual layers of black and white, and he'd done his hair differently today, combing the long uneven fringe back from his brow, leaving only a few strands to fall forward over his left eye. His progress through the crowd was slow: people pressed in on him from all sides, and every few steps he was buttonholed, sometimes by a man's sycophantic greeting, sometimes by a girl's seductive smile. The boy made no effort to be charming. His handshakes were brief, his smiles perfunctory, but nothing could cool the ardour of his admirers. Again and again Hunter had to come forward to insist they let Rufus move on.

A woman stepped into Tseng's field of vision, temporarily blocking the Vice-President from his view. She was his own age, or perhaps a little older, and expensively beautiful. Blond hair, red lips, nipped-in waist, feet arched in six-inch satin heels… Of course he recognised her, though, in a sense, she was merely a single cell, one of many, all alike, her name a known but insignificant detail, her connections to the other cells in this corpus delicti, the Midgar body politic, held in his memory like a map overlaid upon a dozen identical maps simultaneously present in his mind.

She smiled at him. Smiling back, however, was not something he was paid to do. She pouted a little; then, opening her purse, she took out a little folded piece of paper, moved closer – so close he could smell the scent of shampoo in her hair – and smoothly, swiftly, put her fingers on the zip of his jacket, pulled it down a little way, ran her hand inside, and slid the paper into his breast pocket.

"Call me," she murmured, walking away.

His first instinct was to glance around to see if anyone had noticed. Commander Veld was looking his way, one eyebrow cocked knowingly. Through the earpiece Tseng could hear him chuckling to himself. He'd heard her invitation, of course.

Such advances were a regular occupational hazard. This particular woman did not tempt Tseng, though in the past he'd received offers that were… intriguing. And when he was younger - much younger, more curious, less self-controlled, and very naïve - he'd sometimes said yes. But the encounters had always left him feeling sullied… No. _Used._ These jaded men and women were merely satisfying their own curiosity about what lay under the suit; about what went on behind his face. They asked intrusive questions. Quite often, they'd asked him to hurt them, and more and more he'd found it gave him pleasure to oblige. When he realized this, and saw what these people were doing to him - what they thought of him - his soul, that ribbon of steel that Veld had beaten so fine, recoiled.

If professional services were what they were after, then let them go to one of the many private agencies in town that specialized in such things, and put their money down like honest folk. He, Tseng, was not a cheap toy for the amusement of the President's cronies and their wives. He was not a panhandling refugee. He was not a friendless orphan. He was a Turk: he was Shinra.

He left the folded paper where it was, for the time being. Later he would throw it away.

Rufus had now reached his side. Hunter, a step behind him, was scowling irritably. "I'll stay with the Vice-President," Tseng told her. "Go check the stand, and link up with Mink there. We'll be coming along shortly."

"Roger, sir. Anything to get out of this tent," she muttered, hastening away.

"Did Madeleine Fortescue just try to pick you up?" Rufus asked Tseng.

"Possibly."

"Hmmph," said Rufus, glancing from side to side.

The boy was very tense. His impatience, his restlessness, had been growing more pronounced these last months – as if the time had already gone past when the thing he had been waiting for so long, whatever it was, should have arrived.

"God," Rufus groaned, "Doesn't he ever stop?"

He meant his father. Tseng turned to look, and for a few moments the two of them stood shoulder to shoulder, watching the President as he continued to make the rounds of his guests. The Old Man knew how to work a crowd. Seeing a hand stretched out to him, he would seize it in a firm clasp, pump it energetically, smile into the owner's eyes and, if it was man, clap him on the back, giving the impression that this very chap was the one above all others whom he'd longed to see. If it was a woman – young or old, plain or pretty – the old ham's blue eyes twinkled flirtatiously as he offered her some outrageous compliment.

"What a whore he is," Rufus sighed.

"Don't talk about your father like that."

"Why not? It's true." Rufus turned his head to catch and hold Tseng's gaze. "He's an embarrassment. I mean, look at him – "

But Tseng could not look at the President. His eyes were too busy taking Rufus in. _The boy's taller than me_, he realized with a little shock of surprise. _By several inches. When did that happen?_

Rufus was still talking. "Seriously, Tseng, why does he have to keep pimping himself like that? Anyone would think these people were our shareholders. When is he going to realize that their opinions don't matter? We've moved beyond that. Public opinion is not what's holding us back now. _His fear_ of public opinion is the biggest obstacle we face…"

It wasn't just the boy's physical presence that had matured. His voice had grown deeper, and leveled off into its adult timbre: a low, silky tenor with an evenness of modulation that was almost hypnotic.

"…Such a waste of money, Tseng. Half the time he's trying to buy their favour with empty spectacles like this pointless rocket launch, and the rest of the time he's spending a fortune covering up things that don't need to be covered up. If the public doesn't like our business methods, then they can lump it. At the end of the day, they still have to switch their lights on. But he never thinks anything through logically. He's like a little child jumping from one pet project to the next. Look at SOLDIER. We threw a fortune at that – thirty years of investment, and now what have we got to show for it? Angeal, Sephiroth, Genesis, Zack, all dead or as good as; hardly a First Class left. Not quite the super-soldiers we had in mind…"

Rufus rarely raised his voice. He was doing so now. It was if he couldn't help himself; something had pushed him too far -

"…And what about that stupid cannon in Junon? How much did _that_ cost? And what is the _point_ of it? And don't say Wutai; that was just the excuse. It serves no purpose. I cannot imagine any use we could ever have for it. He built it just because he could. He has no sense of proportion. It's all big gestures with him. There's no strategizing – "

"Rufus, stop. People can hear you."

Rufus did pause, but only long enough to draw a deep breath. In an undertone meant for Tseng's ear alone, he hissed, "It's so frustrating. He's had his turn. Why can't he just _die?_"

"You can't say things like that. Not here. Not in public. Not to me. Or anyone."

"Do you honestly think I say these things to anyone _other_ than you? You're the only one who understands. _You_ know what it feels like. How old are you now? Twenty-eight? Twenty-nine? When Lazard was your age he was running SOLDIER. Reeve was head of Urban Planning before he was thirty. Veld was in charge of your department by the time he was twenty-five. But you – you're still Veld's boy. And as long as he's around that's all you'll ever be."

Tseng exclaimed, "You can't compare – " and then bit back the rest of his angry retort, for Reeve Tuesti now came up to them, champagne glass in hand.

"Tseng, Rufus, what's up?" He looked from one of them to the other. "An argument?

"A difference of opinion," said Rufus. "Turks sometimes have opinions, apparently."

"Ah," Reeve smiled blandly. "Dangerous things, opinions."

Always the most elegant of the executives, Reeve was dressed today in a morning coat of fine bluish-black wool, cut away to reveal a slate-grey, silk-embroidered waistcoat. Against these subtle dark hues, his crisp cotton shirt was so purely white it almost hurt. He'd loosened his bow tie and undone his top button. A film of sweat glistened on his brow. "It's too hot in here," he said. "Everyone's getting a little punch drunk with the food and the champagne and the heat. When's the launch, Tseng?"

"We should be moving into the viewing stands any moment now, sir."

Rufus said, "Have you seen the crowds outside, Reeve? Beyond the fence? There's thousands of them."

"Well… I suppose that was to be expected."

"But was it expected? Has Palmer made any arrangements for them? Did anyone? What about water? Shelter?"

"They would bring their own, wouldn't they?"

Rufus grimaced impatiently. "Latrines? Did anyone think about those? When you have five thousand people gathered together like that and no proper waste disposal, do you know what you end up with? An epidemic. Wouldn't that make a glorious note on which to end this fiasco? The whole thing's got completely out of hand. We ought to cancel it and send them home. There's still time."

"Why would we want to do that?" Reeve asked him. "After all the money we've spent?"

"Because if anything goes wrong, we will look ridiculous. Not to mention incompetent. It's not worth the risk. We could cancel it on safety grounds. Call it a temporary delay – "

"What safety grounds? Cid Highwind said everything is good to go."

"Of course he did. He's completely moonstruck. He told me yesterday he'd rather die than lose his chance to be the first man in space. That doesn't sound to me like someone who is taking every available precaution."

Reeve laughed. "Well, no. Admittedly. But it does sound like Cid."

"I don't think you're taking this seriously enough," Rufus frowned. "The money's already been thrown away. The risk is huge. The benefits are negligible. Even if the launch is a success, what do we gain? Cid Highwind orbits the planet a couple of times, big deal – "

"It's a big deal to him."

Rufus made an exasperated sound. "Since when has the realization of some pilot's pipe-dream been the goal of our space program? Really, it's absurd the way we pander to these people."

"What people?" asked the President, walking into the middle of their conversation.

"Employees," said Rufus.

"Got to keep them happy," smiled the Old Man. "Backbone of the company. Can't get any work done without them."

"They don't need to be happy," said Rufus. "They just need to be hungry. And you don't care if they're happy. Why do you have to pretend all the time? You're not fooling anybody. Except maybe yourself."

"My lad – " The President reached up to put an arm around his son's neck, and hugged tight – a little too tight. "When I was your age, I thought I knew everything, too. But I was just a smartarse like you."

"I'd rather be a smartarse than a hypocrite," said Rufus, as he struggled to free himself from his father's grip.

"Sir," said Commander Veld, coming up beside them, "It's time."

.

There were speeches. There was the Military Academy's Marching Band. There was a disciplined cohort of schoolgirls in pigtails and tunics, scattering rose-petals from baskets and singing a song about starlight and destiny. There were bouquets to be presented, thanks to be proclaimed. There was, finally, a ceremonial ribbon to be cut. Through it all Tseng stood at the back of the Presidential box, watching Rufus interact with the girl seated next to him and contemplating the challenge that he presented.

The chairs in the box were gilded, upholstered with purple leather. In the chair beside Rufus sat one of the current crop of LOVELESS starlets, a raven-haired, blue-eyed girl of such startling loveliness that even Tseng had momentarily forgotten he was working and stopped to stare. Undoubtedly she had been hand-picked by the President, and put there with orders to charm his son. She was doing her best, but she wasn't getting much in return.

Almost two years ago the Old Man had instructed them, _I want to know who's in his bed. He's young. He's vulnerable. I need names. Dates. Profiles._

In Rufus' mid-adolescence there had been the usual experimental fumblings: a girl in a back-bedroom at one party, a boy in the coat cupboard at another… Though Rufus had never initiated any of these encounters. Tseng supposed that was only natural. The Prince of the Shinra Empire was not someone who wooed, or gave chase, or had to ask. He simply waited, secure in the knowledge that all good things would come to him eventually, of their own free will.

All the same… Rufus was eighteen years old now, and as far as Tseng knew he had never had a serious relationship. Given the opportunities constantly thrown his way, the file on his love-life was suspiciously thin. There had been a few short-lived, casual hook-ups with suitable girls of his class; these were usually carried out so indiscretely – vanishing together into chalet bedrooms during snow-boarding weekends, for example – that Tseng suspected the boy was deliberately giving his watchdogs something to put in their reports. Rufus never brought girls – or any guests – to his suite in the Shinra building; they would have had to pass through security vetting first. Nor was there any evidence that he visited prostitutes.

In fact, Rufus seemed (or possibly, thought Tseng, was choosing to make it look as if he seemed) to have little interest in sex. Skeeter and Hunter, his two principle bodyguards, had been instructed by Veld to make themselves available to him, should he show himself so inclined. They were handsome young people, physically attractive. Rufus hadn't even sniffed at the bait.

Of course, lack of evidence was not, in itself, evidence of lack. Rufus knew he was being watched. He knew that any relationships he might form would be of intense interest to his father, and that if his father should happen to disapprove, interference would be inevitable.

Tseng thought of Lazard, who had hidden behind Zack; and of how Cissnei had hidden behind Lazard. But not from Reno's sharp eyes. And then he remembered Reno saying once, years ago, _but boss, the poor little buttoned-up shit! I felt sorry for him…._

Rufus enjoyed more freedom of movement now that he was older. The Turks could not watch him every minute of every day. Did he wait for those moments, slipping through the cracks in their vigilance to briefly enjoy something approximating a life? For his sake, Tseng rather hoped so.

The boy certainly had his Old Man in a stew. _Damn it, Veld, it's not natural! At his age I was at it every chance I got. Damned pup doesn't know how lucky he is, all those pretty girls throwing themselves at him. You don't think he's a pansy, do you?_

The starlet was pulling out all the stops now, gesturing delicately with her slender hands as she chattered away, batting her eyelashes and giggling. Rufus seemed to be listening, though his expression, seen in profile, never altered. It was uphill work for the poor girl. Discouraged, she fell silent, and glanced around as if hoping for help.

Rufus turned his head to look over his shoulder at Tseng.

There was a message in his eyes, but Tseng could not decipher it.

"Commencing countdown," crackled a voice from the loudspeakers. "Ten, nine…"

Rufus took a pair of sunglasses from his pocket and put them on.

"…Six, five…."

Tseng put on his own sunglasses. Everyone in the stands had done the same.

"…Two…"

Rufus turned back to face the rocket.

"Ignition – "

Flames erupted from the base of the rocket. A split second later, the roar of the engines hit their ears, and a second after that, the heat from the blast gusted into their faces. The air liquified: colours ran together, shapes melted. The rocket shuddered violently, and lifted itself into the air.

Suddenly the noise died, as if the engines had stalled.

The rocket trembled in the air for a moment, then sank back to earth. Almost immediately it began to yaw to starboard, and Tseng was sure it would fall – but it fell against one of the launch towers, and though the tower groaned, it held. With a grinding of metal against metal, the rocket settled into the soft hot ground, tilted at an angle like a child's toy thrown down and abandoned in the midst of play.

.

_Extract from the minutes of the Shinra Electric Company Board of Directors meeting, 15__th__ April 2002._

_Present: President Shinra, Vice-President Rufus, Heidegger, Scarlet, Palmer, Tuesti, Hojo, Veld_

_Item 1.1_

_Vice-President Rufus proposed that the Shinra space program be suspended with immediate effect. Tuesti seconded motion. Motion passed nem con, one abstention. President accepted motion…._

…_Item 2.3_

_Palmer moved that Captain Cid Highwind face official censure over his flagrant disregard for safety procedures and for negligence in failing to ensure that the Shinra 26 was launchworthy. Motion failed due to lack of a second…._

Tseng was outside, standing against the wall to the right of the boardroom door, waiting for the Commander. He saw Rufus come out first, accompanied by Reeve and Heidegger. Rufus did not glance his way, but walked off down the corridor toward the executive elevator, with the Director of Public Safety Maintenance on his left and the Director of Urban Planning on his right talking at each other across him.

Scarlet came next, the colour high in her cheeks; Palmer followed, his fat little legs scurrying to catch up with her. Hojo stalked out soon afterwards, hands clasped behind his back, walking like a stilted heron hunting for frogs to spear with its beak.

Tseng kept waiting.

Finally, Veld emerged.

Tseng was shocked by his appearance. Deep lines ran down either side of his mouth. The scar on his cheek was shiny, puckered. His eyelids had reddened; his eyelashes had grown sparse. His hair, though still thick, was almost completely grey. But how was it possible he could have grown so much older in two hours?

_Fool!_ Tseng rebuked himself. _He's been looking like this for months. Years. And now you notice? He carries us all on his shoulders. You could do more to help him, instead of thinking about yourself all the time –_

Gazing down the corridor in the direction Rufus had gone, Veld heaved a weary sigh.

"Sir?" said Tseng.

"Oh, Tseng – there you are. I didn't see you."

The Commander put his real hand on Tseng's shoulder and let it rest there for a moment; and maybe it was only Tseng's imagination, but it did not seem as heavy as it once had been.

Tseng asked, "Is everything all right?"

Veld's smile only emphasised the tiredness in his eyes. He said, "My cloud of dignity is held from falling with so weak a wind that it will soon drop."

He spoke the nonsensical words dreamily, as if half-asleep, or lost in thought – unlike himself, at any rate.

"That sounds like Loveless, sir. What does it mean?"

"It means the wind is changing. It feels too soon, but I suppose it's been a lifetime already. Who would have thought this Turk would live to be so old?"

"You're not old, sir."

Veld laughed at that, and gave his subordinate an amused look, as if to say, _we both know you're lying, but thank you._

"Did something happen in there?" Tseng asked him.

"Nothing out of the ordinary. The usual boardroom games. Rufus is making a power play. He's squeezing every inch of mileage out of the rocket failure." Veld shut his eyes for a moment, then chuckled. "What unreasonable old codgers we are. We teach you to walk, and then we complain when you outrun us. Still…." He patted Tseng's shoulder, "The change won't come overnight. Plenty of work yet for an old Turk to do. Come on, my boy. Shoulder to the wheel, eh? We'll go to my office, and I'll fill you in on all the details..."

* * *

_Thanks for reading!_


	29. Us and Them

**CHAPTER 29: US AND THEM  
_In which Aviva makes a resolution, Barret Wallace helps Reno, and Rufus shows his hand_**

**

* * *

**_Pages from Aviva's Diary: __May 8__th__, 2003_

Today when I was bodyguarding the President at a function, he did something that shocked me. He set a thousand gil note on fire and used it to light his cigar. Like it was just a piece of scrap paper. Probably that shows how naïve I still am. No one else seemed bothered by it.

I guess people who have everything have money to burn.

I've just realized something, Diary. _She_ was like that. Cissnei. But not with money. With love…

.

_May 29__th__, 2003_

I think we both knew from the start that it wasn't going to work out with Louis, didn't we, Diary? I cringed every time he tried to touch me. I didn't mean to; I didn't want to hurt his feelings. I just couldn't help myself. I felt so bad for him. I tried to explain that it wasn't him, that it was me, but I don't think he believed me. Who's going to believe that a _Turk _is too petrified to let a guy come anywhere near her?

And anyway, it's not the whole truth, is it? Louis was such a nice guy. But he was the wrong guy.

Which is really quite ironic when you think about it, because any girl with half a brain cell can see that R is the wrongest of wrong guys in every possible way. What _is _it about him? He isn't even all that good-looking. Maybe out of all of them Rude's the closest to what you'd call classically tall, dark and handsome. But R…. He's as skinny as a filleted fish, and he's kind of slouchy and slinky, and his lips are thin, and his eyes are so hard you can't see inside them. But when I least expect it, he'll suddenly walk in, and he looks so beautiful to me that my heart stands still, and I could go on looking at him forever…

.

_May 30__th__, 2003_

I have got to stop pretending. The _real _reason it didn't work out with Louis is because I am totally screwed up. Too much of what I might have had to give a lover was taken from me too young, and maybe that's not my fault, but it's still my problem and I have to deal with it. So I've come to a decision, Diary. No more dating for me. I'm going to stop saying _Yes_ when inside I'm screaming _No! No! Keep away!_ I've got to get over this knee-jerk compulsion to please. I don't owe anybody anything just for treating me nice. The little Aviva inside of me is still scared of what will happen if she isn't nice to people who are nice to her – but I know what old Charlie would say to that girl. You owe _yourself_ some self-respect, kiddo.

_1.10 am: _

I was lying in bed just now, thinking, and I suddenly thought, maybe the reason I'm so fixated on R is because it's completely and utterly impossible that he would ever notice me in that way or be interested in me. So he's safe. As long as I keep telling myself I'm love with a man who's never going to love me, I don't have to face the fact that I'm actually incapable of having a real relationship. I can worship him from afar forever without running the risk of my fantasies being shattered.

I'm not a child any more. I'm eighteen years old. I should act like it. I can't keep using R as my crutch. I have got to stop mooning over him. It's just ridiculous.

.

_June 18__th__, 2003_

Resolution update: mission not accomplished.

Will keep trying. Turks don't fail.

.

_July 5__th__, 2003_

Big drama in the office today. It started with R's phone ringing. I didn't pay much attention until I heard him say, "Who the **** gave you this number?" We all looked up then, and Hunter got up and made to leave the room. R said into his phone, "Can't you take a hint? If I didn't call it's because I didn't want to. Now get off the ****ing line, it's for business." And then he hung up and he yelled, "Honey!" because she was sneaking off all guilty-like. She started running but he caught her and held her by her ponytail, and he was really pissed off and shouted at her, "What the hell do you think you're playing at?" and she said, "I'm sick of the way you treat the women in this building. I think it's time you answered to _someone_–" and he shouted "Who the **** do you think you are to interfere with my ****ing private life, you stuck-up brat?" and then Rude came and put himself between them. And Hunter shouted at R from behind Rude's back, "You better watch out karma doesn't come around and bite your skinny arse," and of course R then said, "It can suck my ***ing **** for all I care and I hope it likes the taste." Naturally all the guys cracked up at that. Even Rude grinned.

And then the door to the stairway opened and this blonde girl comes running in, looking kind of crazed, and I remembered seeing her at a party about a week ago. I left early. She works in Accounts, I think. So anyway, she sees R and she goes at him, and she yells, "You don't hang up on me like that you ****ing bastard. You owe me an explanation. You might at least have had the decency to call me."

And he says, "Get the **** out of here."

And Hunter says, "Why do you have to be such an ****head?"

And R says, "She hasn't got security clearance, she needs to get the **** off our floor."

And this blond girl is crying because she's so angry, and she says, "You can't treat me like this. What do you think I am? You think I'd do those things with just anyone?"

"How the hell would I know?" he says. "I don't even know your name."

That sent her over the edge. She starts screaming, "It's Beatrice! Beatrice! You _know_ that!"

And he's all "OK, whatever" like he actually wants to calm her down, and he says, "Look, Beatrice, you're reading way too much into this thing. The fact is, it was getting late, and I felt like getting laid, and I wasn't feeling too choosy."

So Beatrice starts wheezing like she's having an asthma attack, and she picks up the nearest thing, which was a hole punch, and she threw it at him. He ducked. It broke the glass on the company logo that was hanging behind him. Cavs and Tys were laughing so hard they sounded like they were going to be sick. But Rude wasn't. He was trying to grab Beatrice's arm to stop her throwing things.

And then Mr Tseng came out of his office, with his "what's going on here" and "what's all this noise"? But how could we say anything when she was standing right there sobbing her heart out? Anyway he didn't need us to tell him: he took a good look and he got the picture. So he tells Hunter to take her back where she belongs, and then he tears a strip off R and says he gives the department a bad name when he does things like this, and R says, "get real, Boss, I'm just living up to their expectations" and then Mr Tseng took him into his office, and none of us know what they said, even though Tys went and put his ear to the door. A while later R came out looking like he wouldn't mind killing somebody, probably Hunter. He went out. I haven't seen him again today…

.

_July 8__th__, 2003_

I can't stop thinking about that girl Beatrice. It's like I know I ought to feel sorry for her, but I just can't find it in me. What was she thinking of? There's no way she didn't know what she was letting herself in for when she hooked up with him. There can't be anyone left in the entire building that doesn't know his reputation. Probably the whole of Midgar knows. Plate _and_ slums.

I really have a hard time understanding these girls who throw themselves at him. Do they _like_ being treated like dirt? I guess maybe some of them really _do_. Human beings can be very strange. But I think some of them believe that somehow they can change him. We all like to think we're unique and special, don't we? They probably believe that with them everything is going to be different.

But I do feel sorry for them, and do you know why? Because they'll never really know him. They bring out the worst side of him, so that's all they see. I know what a bastard he can be, diary, but the thing is, he's never been a bastard to _me_. I know the _real_ him. I know I can trust him with my life. I'm his _partner._ His sidekick, too, for a lot of the time. And sometimes, when he's happy about the way a mission's gone or he's pleased with my performance, I'm his pal. I wouldn't trade that for _anything_.

So I guess I should be thankful he doesn't see me as a girl, chick, babe, whatever. God only knows how the department would continue to function if the guys remembered we were women.

You know what, Diary? I think that's the real reason he was so furious with Hunter. It's Us and Them, and she sided with Them…

* * *

_8th May, 2002, 08.55 am_

Reno was sitting at the surveillance bank in the secret room on the floor between floors. Though he was, technically speaking, upright, to describe what he was doing as _work_ would be to stretch a point. He was, in fact, enjoying a catnap, his body sunk deep in the leather chair, his feet resting on the desk. A string of late nights had finally taken their toll.

Above him the wall-sized monitor had split itself into twenty-five separate colour images, each relaying a view from one of the CCTV security cameras on the lowest levels of the Shinra building. Garbage disposal - basement garage - boiler room – switch room - janitorial supplies…. Every thirty seconds the images dissolved, to be replaced by new scenes one floor up. In just over an hour the program could scroll through the entire building. It was not Reno's job, or any Turk's job, to watch it constantly; the guards in the security room off the lobby had their own monitors for that. But when the Turks were not using their wide screen for any other purpose, they kept the surveillance cameras running constantly in the background.

To Reno's left stood a double row of free-standing monitors, one for the each of the company's mako reactors: the eight in Midgar, the Shinra Number One on Mt Nibel, now repaired and fully operational, the defunct Gongaga reactor, the underwater reactor at Junon, the reactor at Fort Condor, and the construction site at Corel. Since the incident at Nibelheim new security measures had been put in place: all authorised reactor workers had been implanted with chips in the back of their hands, which were automatically scanned as they passed designated points in the building. Any motion picked up by the sensors that failed to pass the scan would trigger a remote alarm here in the Turks' control room, as well as an immediate attack by the on-site defense robots.

The beauty of this system, and the feature which made it a significant improvement over the security cards used on the trains, was that the chips had so far proved impossible to forge, as a ring of rogue technicians in Junon had recently learnt to their cost. The four of them who'd survived the bust had been publicly executed only last week: justice, live on TV. Kind of a new departure, Reno had thought at the time. The usual Shinra style was to brush the dirt under the carpet, spray round a can of air freshener, and put out a big vase of flowers to hide the stain. According to Cavour, who said he'd heard it from one of Reeve Tuesti's secretaries, the whole execution thing, and the publicity that had surrounded it, had been Rufus Shinra's idea…

Suddenly the alarm went off in Reno's ear, jerking him back to full consciousness. Disoriented, he kicked out. The chair went rolling backwards; Reno tumbled to the floor, arms and legs flailing. The alarm kept ringing, painfully loud. Still half-fogged with sleep, Reno got to his feet, squinting at the monitors to see which one was the source of the problem.

There. Corel. The half-built reactor.

On the monitor dark silhouettes could be seen moving along a metal catwalk suspended above the glow of the mako pit. Reno counted five people in all. The one bringing up the rear stopped, turned, raised their eyes, and for a moment seemed to be gazing straight at Reno. Then it – he, she – aimed their gun and fired. The screen went blank, but not before Reno had recognised them. Those blue goggles and pie-shaped headgear were unmistakable.

The cancer had returned.

He began flipping through the feeds from the Corel cameras. Nothing – nothing – nothing – Were those five_ it_? – Nothing – Wait, there! Yes, that was the woman, Elfe, talking to some of her underlings. Not many, though. A dozen. And there was that big fucker Shears. Reno still had a score to settle with him.

He couldn't see Fuhito, but he'd have taken a bet the scrawny geek was somewhere close by. Charlie had said all along he was afraid the AVALANCHE leaders weren't dead – which was pretty honest of the old sod, considering it had been his job to get rid of them.

Reno pulled out his phone.

"Boss, whatever you're doing, drop it and get in here. There's something you'll want to see."

.

_09.42 am_

A sharp wind whipped across the roof of the Shinra Building, where three helicopters had been scrambled and were hovering, waiting. Tseng projected his voice. "Tys, you'll come with me. Mink, Hunter, go with Rude. Skeeter, you go with Reno. Where's Aviva?"

"On her way," said Rude.

Aviva at that moment was pelting up the stairs, ignoring the ache in her thighbone. She'd been in the canteen eating a late breakfast when she got Tseng's call. The first elevator had been full; the second had taken too long to come. So she'd run. Her knives rattled in their holsters. Breathlessly she burst through the door on the top landing. From here she could see down the corridor and out onto the roof. They were all waiting for _her_.

"What's happening?" said a silky voice behind her.

_Omigosh_, she thought_, it's the Vice-President! _"Mr Rufus, sir! I didn't see you there!"

"Something's going on. What is it?"

_He's so good-looking… Girl! Get a grip! _

"I asked you a question, Turk."

"It's AVALANCHE, sir. They've invaded the Corel reactor. I'm sorry, sir, but I have to go, I'm holding everyone up – "

"Go," he waved a hand.

She dashed away onto the rooftop. "There you are," Tseng shouted. "Go with Reno. We'll rendezvous at the north entrance to the coal mines. Rude, Reno, have you got the coordinates?"

"Check."

"All right, let's go."

Tseng's helicopter was the last to leave. He was just preparing to take off when his phone rang.

"It's me," said Veld. "I'm down in the surveillance room. I'll coordinate your movements. Oh, and Tseng – if Rufus calls you, tell him nothing."

"Understood."

Because knowledge was power, and the Old Man was hanging on to his like grim death.

.

_10.16 am_

The door to the Turks' secret surveillance room hissed open. Commander Veld looked up from the monitor and saw President Shinra come staggering in, breathing heavily, one fist pressed to his heart. For a moment Veld thought the Old Man must have been shot. But there was no blood.

"Piet – Rufus has gone."

"What?" Veld stood up. "How did he find out?"

"I don't know."

"But how did he leave?"

"He took a helicopter."

"But they're under strict instructions – "

"He drew a gun on them." The Old Man pulled a hand down his face. His knees were trembling. "Sit," said Veld, steering him to a chair.

The Old Man collapsed into the chair and took a shuddering breath. "He was doing – so well, too. Don't you think? Chip off the old block. Have you seen the way he's got Heidegger eating out of his hand…."

"I've seen."

"Damned whippersnapper. I was starting to enjoy the board meetings again. Like pitting my wits against my own younger self. And now this. Fool. Fool!"

"I'll let Tseng know – "

"No! You have to go after him. If you leave now and go straight to the reactor you can find him before they do. Stop him from doing anything stupid."

Veld only hesitated a moment. "All right."

"Do whatever it takes," said the President. "Tell the Turks if you have to. Rufus is all I have left. I don't care about anything else. Please, Piet." He grabbed hold of Veld's hand and held on to it tightly. "We can rebuild reactors. Just bring my child home. That's all that matters now."

Veld grasped the Old Man's hand and gave it a squeeze. "I know," he said. "My old friend, I know."

.

_12.57 pm_

The other Turks had been waiting on the ground for almost a quarter of an hour before Tseng's helicopter came in to land. In that time a small crowd of ragged children had gathered, and stood watching them from a short distance away.

"We'll need someone to guard the helicopters," said Tseng. "I don't want to get back here and find them stripped. Hunter, you'll stay."

"Oh, sir, that's not fair – "

Tseng disregarded her. "Right, the rest of you. We're going to split up and come at them from all four sides. Tys, you're with Mink. Aviva, you're with Reno. Skeeter, you're with Rude. I'll go alone. We're going in through the mines. The Commander's sent a map to each of your phones and marked your routes. When in doubt, use your compasses and keep a south-westerly course. Call me when you reach your contact point. This is still a working mine, so make sure you don't alarm the miners. If anyone asks, we're on a routine inspection. Got that?"

"Roger," they chorused.

"Then let's go."

.

_14.04 pm_

"Reno," said Aviva, "Are we lost?"

He didn't want to admit it. "I think it's this way." He pointed at the mouth of the right-hand tunnel. "I think I can smell the mako."

"This map is useless," she sighed.

"It must be pretty old," he agreed.

"What does the compass say?"

"That way." He pointed down the left-hand tunnel.

"Maybe we should ask someone."

He shook his head vigorously. "No asking. Just give me a moment and I'll work it out."

"But at this rate we'll never get to the reactor -"

"Ssh," said Reno. "Listen."

Footsteps were coming from the right-hand tunnel, and they were growing louder. Reno and Aviva switched off their torches and drew apart, pressing themselves into the shadows. She put a hand on her knife belt. He drew his rod.

A beam of light shone out of the tunnel. As the footsteps came closer, the beam grew brighter, and in a few moments a tall, burly man appeared, wearing a miner's lamp on his head. He was stripped to the waist, and his body glistened with sweat. In the dimness it was impossible to tell whether his skin was dark by nature or from coal dust. Over one shoulder he carried a pick. The backwash of light carved his face into strange hollows and angles, like a mask, and in that mask the whites of his eyes were shining.

Aviva sneezed.

He turned the lamp on them, dazzling their eyes. "Hey, you kids – what you doin' in here? Damn fool place to go canoodling! C'mon, get over here where I c'n see you."

Reno had already put his rod away. Aviva let her hand drop from the knives.

"We could ask him," she said to Reno.

"Hey, I'll be the one askin' the questions. Too many strange things goin' on here today. You – " But now the miner had come close enough to see them properly. "Hold on a sec. You're from Shinra, aintcha? I seen them suits before, when that Scarlett woman came here. What the hell you doin' in my mine?"

"Do you know how to get to the reactor?" asked Aviva.

"Damn sure I do. I dug these tunnels myself. But you can't go there this way. Hell, don't you people communicate with each other?"

"What are you talking about?" said Reno.

"Ran into another Shinra type back there, 'bout ten minutes ago. Reactor construction guy. Told me they was shuttin' down the mine for some routine testing and I should clear everybody out."

Reno said, "Was he wearing blue goggles? And a sort of flat cap with a neck cape?"

"Nope. Technician guy. White coat. Glasses."

"Black hair? Kind of runty and geeky?"

"That's the one."

"Fuhito," Reno breathed. He and Aviva exchanged glances. "Let's go –"

"Whoa," said the miner, holding them back with a hand. "Somethin' ain't right here. First I got some Shinra guy tellin' me to get everybody _out_, and now I got more suits tryin' to get _in_. How do I even know you're legit? Could be you're them terrorists, plannin' to blow up our reactor like they did in Nibelheim. So first you show me some ID. Then maybe I'll help you."

Aviva looked to Reno for guidance. "Guess it can't hurt," he said. They pulled out their ID. The miner bent his head to direct the beam of light onto the cards. "Reno. Aviva. Investigative Affairs Section, Department of Administrative Research. OK, I guess you check out. I'm Barret. Barret Wallace. I'm one of the union leaders. This here's our mine, and that reactor – it's _our_ reactor. You hear what I'm sayin'? We been waitin' a long time for life to get a little easier round here. All our hopes are pinned on that reactor. So if there's some kind of trouble, I think I oughtta know."

Once again Aviva turned her pleading face to Reno. He shook his head. "You heard the Boss, Veev."

"But Mr Wallace is right. And he can help us. I think we should tell him. I really do." By the light of the miner's lamp her black eyes shone up at him expectantly.

Like another girl's round, bright eyes, on another mission, in a different dark place.

"Fucking _don't – " _he snapped.

Aviva blinked, and shrank into herself.

_Shit_. Now he'd hurt her feelings. And that made _him _feel like crap. He should be more careful: she didn't deserve to get flakked by his shrapnel.

He sighed. "OK, Veev. Fine. Whatever you want. Look, whatsyourname – Wallace - the reason why we're here is privileged information. But if that reactor's important to you, then take us to it. That's all I can say."

Barret sucked his teeth thoughtfully, looking from one Turk to the other and back again as he slowly made up his mind.

"All right," he said. "Follow me."

.

Twenty minutes later, Aviva tugged on Reno's sleeve. He bent his head, and she whispered in his ear, "See? We were lucky we ran into Mr Wallace. We'd never have found our way through this maze on our own."

Reno was not prepared to concede the point. "I would've. It would just have taken us a little longer, that's all – "

He broke off because she'd stumbled, and had grabbed hold of his arm to stop herself falling.

"Are you OK?" he asked.

"Sure."

"You're limping."

"I'm fine. Come on, let's pick up the pace. I don't want everyone waiting for me _aga-_"

"Shee-it," whistled Barret, stopping dead. "What the fuck is _that_?"

"It's just a machine gun," said Reno. Even as he spoke, the weapon positioned in the tunnel ahead of them came alive and stood upright with a sequence of clunks and clicks. A red beam of light pinpointed Barret's forehead. The barrel began to spin. There was a spark, a bang, and next moment the disabled machine gun was toppling sideways. "Programmed to target body heat," Reno added, sliding his rod back up his sleeve.

"That's the unholiest goddamn thing I ever saw," Barret exclaimed. It was unclear whether he meant the machine gun or Reno's weapon.

"Really? Guess you must lead pretty sheltered lives down here. Well, let's go. And keep your eyes and ears open. There's bound to be more of those things around."

.

Three machine guns and one black-market gun bull head later, Barrett brought them out into the sunlight on the other side of the mines. They were at the rail junction, where the narrow-gauge coal bogies were emptied into larger hopper cars for transportation across the trestle to the railhead beside the reactor. As far as they could see, they were the only three human beings anywhere in the rocky landscape.

"That's the way," said Barret, pointing to the rollercoaster bridge.

"Pretty exposed," said Reno. "And probably booby-trapped. All right. Thanks, mate. We'll take it from here."

"The hell you are," Barret blustered. "This is my town and my mine. I'm comin' with ya."

"If that's what you want, fine." Reno still had his rod in his hand after blasting the bull head. Flipping the switch to stun, he threw a bolt straight between Barret's eyes. The miner slumped to the ground unconscious.

"Reno!" Aviva cried. "How could you? He helped us!"

"And I've returned the favour. He'll wake up later and go home with nothing worse than a headache. Seriously, Veev, you need to start growing up, OK? Amateurs like him are a fucking liability."

Reno took hold of Barret by the armpits and began dragging him towards the mouth of the tunnel. "How about lending me a hand?" he asked her. "This guy's no lightweight." After a moment's hesitation, Aviva came to help, lifting Barrett's legs by the ankles. They moved the miner out of sight and made him as comfortable as they could. When that was done, Reno turned his attention back to the problem of how to get safely across the bridge.

"We can't walk across. That would be suicide. Swim the river? Current looks too fast. What time's it now, Veev?"

"About three."

"Try calling Tseng."

She did. "His number's unobtainable."

"He must still be inside the mines. Try the Chief."

While she dialed, he lit a cigarette.

"He's not answering," she said.

Reno made an exasperated noise, and ran his hands through his hair. "Man, I wish we had an engine."

"But why don't we take one of the hoppers? It's easy – there's two levers inside, and you just push them up and down."

He stared at her. "How do you know that?"

"I used to play in them when I was little. I grew up here, remember?"

He hadn't remembered, but felt it might be better to let her believe he had. "Sure," he nodded. "Hometown girl. Great. Let's get in, and you can show me what to do."

The levers were well-oiled and not heavy. "You push up while I push down," she told him. Once they'd established a rhythm, the hopper began to move quite fast. Nobody sniped at them, there were no booby-traps, and the points were locked to the lower track. In five minutes they were across. It all seemed too easy.

As soon as they could they abandoned the hopper and made their way on foot up the barren, boulder-strewn hillside. There was very little shade. Beneath his suit, Reno's skin prickled with sweat, and Aviva's white face was flushed. At last they reached the brow of the hill. Keeping low to the ground, the two Turks belly-crawled up the last few metres of scree, put their heads over the top, and found themselves gazing down at the green glow of the unfinished Mount Corel reactor, shiny as a big tin can bobbing in a syrupy well of mako.

Reno rolled over and slid back down the scree, gesturing for Aviva to follow him. A little to the left, an overhang of rock cast a narrow shadow. The two of them crept into its coolness. Reno wiped his forehead on his sleeve.

"Try Tseng again," he said.

This time Tseng answered. He told them to stay where they were for now. The others were still assembling. He'd call them back in fifteen minutes.

"I guess it's breaktime," said Reno.

Side by side they leaned against the rock and looked east across the vista of jagged ridges and low, scrubby foothills. From this vantage point they could see in the distance the tarpaper rooftops of Corel Town, surrounded by a dense forest. Thin plumes of smoke rose from the town's many chimneys.

Aviva said, "When the reactor starts up, the mines will close. What'll happen to everybody? How will they live?"

"They'll get nice clean jobs in the reactor. You heard our friend. They can hardly wait."

He lit another cigarette. Aviva smiled and breathed in deeply, eyes closed. "I love the smell of tobacco."

"Want one?"

"Oh, no thanks. I tried one once, years ago. It made me puke."

"Suit yourself."

South beyond Corel the hills levelled out into grassy flatlands. Heat rippled the air, forming bands of distorted transparency. On every other side the mountains rose up, ridge after ridge, bare grey slabs of granite baking in the sun. _What must it be like to live here?_ Reno wondered. God, the monotony. The boredom.

He turned back to Aviva. "So anyway. Our friend Mr Wallace – d'you know him?"

"Not really. Once we got out into the sunlight I did recognise him. He's a big wheel round here. But he wasn't…. He didn't…." She was stammering now. "I mean… I didn't have anything to do with him."

She fell silent. Her face was wistful, but not, he guessed, from any longing for the good old days.

He thought back to the day she'd first joined them, a scared, skinny child in a suit that didn't fit, her huge hungry eyes almost popping from their sockets with the strain of taking everything in. She was determined to do whatever it took. That was the first thing he'd liked about her. And then there were the assumptions she'd made about the people in authority around her, about what they expected from her, and her willingness to comply with those expectations – no, to excel. To show initiative. To do whatever they wanted, and more. To_ win_. She'd told them her whole history right there that day, without saying a word. And Tseng had been shocked. The Boss had some weird little blindspots of naivety; Reno supposed it came from having been brought up in the office by the Commander. Tseng had been shocked, and then he'd got angry with Reno for not being shocked, and Reno had got angry with him… But not about Aviva. About Cissnei….

He would never say to Aviva, _how bad was it? You wanna talk about it?_

She would never say to him, _how much does it still hurt? Do you think you'll ever stop missing her?_

"Hey, Veev?"

She came back from wherever her own thoughts had been drifting, and turned her face towards him. "Yes?"

"I just wanted to say – you're all right, you know?"

A blush of confusion coloured her cheeks. She really was kind of cute when she got all bashful.

"You're a good Turk," he went on. "I always knew you would be. You're a good partner, too. You're upbeat and you don't whinge, you just get on with the job. I know I can be tough on you sometimes, so I wanted to let you know… You're OK, really. Is all."

"Well…" she stammered, "Thanks -"

Her phone buzzed. She answered it briefly. "It's time to move," she told Reno.

He stubbed out his cigarette in the dirt. "AVALANCHE are waiting for us in there. You realize that, don't you?"

Aviva nodded. He could see that she was scared, but was determined not to show it. Smart kid. _If we all get out of here alive, _he reflected_, we'll be fucking lucky_. This thought, however, he kept to himself.

.

_15.39 pm_

The unfinished interior of the reactor put Tseng in mind of Aerith's church. It had the same vaulted silences, the same echoing emptiness, and he walked into it with the same carefulness, putting each foot down slowly, heel to toe, making no sound.

He was standing at one end of a girder bridge that spanned the pool of mako bubbling gently four stories below. Chrome pipes wide enough for a man to walk through arched over his head. Diametrically opposite, he could see from the flash of red that Reno and Aviva had taken up their positions. Skeet and Rude were in place at three o'clock, Tys and Mink at nine o'clock. They were all waiting for Tseng to give the word.

The problem was, Tseng wasn't sure what to do now. He had anticipated needing to fight their way in. But the reactor seemed to be deserted.

Two possible scenarios suggested themselves. One, AVALANCHE had planted bombs on a timer and withdrawn. If that was the case, the Turks needed to find the bombs and defuse them. Or, two, the reactor invasion had been a diversionary tactic, to lure the Turks away and keep them tied up while AVALANCHE pursued its real objective elsewhere. If that were the case, the Commander would have called him by now – but instead he'd gone incommunicado again.

Of one fact and one fact only was Tseng absolutely sure: AVALANCHE was no longer the big organization it had been a year ago. Charlie had achieved that much, at least. What remained was a mere rump – but a rump with leadership, and in some ways more dangerous, because they now needed to be more cunning. They could no longer afford to waste men in full frontal assaults like the one against Junon last year. Guerilla tactics had become the order of the day.

He decided the best thing to do would be to make a quick sweep of the whole building and perimeter, to ensure no terrorists were lurking inside, and then he'd leave one of the teams to check for bombs while he took the rest back to Midgar –

"You're late," said Rufus Shinra from behind him.

Tseng whirled round, thinking he must have imagined it.

Rufus smiled. "I was beginning to wonder if you'd given up and gone home."

"You can't be here!" Tseng exclaimed.

"Well, as you see, I am."

How could this be happening? How had the boy got here? And why? What had he come for?

"Now, I think that's everyone," Rufus added.

_He wants to be where the action is, _Tseng realized_. _Of course that was it: Rufus had always been fascinated by the Turks and angled to be included in their business. He must have found out about this mission somehow and flow himself here. Damn Reno for teaching him how to fly a helicopter!

"You have to leave," said Tseng urgently, "Right _now_, Rufus. It's too dangerous. Go home."

From the other side of the reactor Mink called out, "Sir, is that the Vice-President?"

"Rufus?" yelled Reno. "Boss, what the fuck is going on? Why's he here?"

"You shouldn't let your subordinates swear at you," Rufus advised him. "I wouldn't put up with it for a minute."

"Go home," Tseng repeated. "Now."

"I think you'll find you're not the one who gives the orders here," said Rufus. His face broke into a real, boyish grin, and he added, "I've always wanted to say that."

Heavy footsteps clattered loudly on the platform above their heads. Everyone looked up. "Sir!" they cried.

"All of you!" Commander Veld shouted. "Capture the Vice-President!"

"What?" they chorused.

"Excuse me," said Rufus, pushing Tseng aside and running off along the catwalk towards the reactor core.

"After him!" Veld ordered.

"What the hell is this farce?" said Reno to Aviva as the two of them broke into a run.

A gunshot reverberated in their ears.

"Don't shoot him, you idiot!" Veld yelled at Tys. "He musn't be harmed. Catch him! Keep him safe! Mink – go to your left. Rude – go around behind the exhaust shafts and cut him off. Skeeter, stay where you are and block his exit. Aviva, get the doors. Reno, run!"

"I _am_!"

Veld came rattling down one set of stairs, but Rufus had found another and was racing up them towards a door set in the reactor core's wall. Reno put on an extra burst of speed, flung himself forward, and grabbed the Vice-President's ankle. Rufus fell headlong, arms sprawling. "Got him!" Reno cried.

The others rushed over. Rufus pulled himself into a sitting position and reached inside his jacket for his gun, but Reno was too quick for him, knocking it out of his hand with the butt end of his rod.

Commander Veld held up his hand for silence.

He said, "President Shinra has authorized me to inform you that Vice-President Rufus is the one who has been controlling AVALANCHE."

There was a short, stunned silence.

"What?" rasped Rude.

"That's ridiculous," said Mink. "He's just a kid."

"Nevertheless," said Veld. "That's how it is. Stand up, Rufus."

"Rufus, is this true?" asked Tseng.

Rufus was looking at Veld. "How long have you known?"

"Since last December."

"What?" exclaimed Reno.

"Who betrayed me?" Rufus' voice was calm.

Veld shook his head. "That's classified, I'm afraid, and you no longer have security clearance. Until today, your father and I, and one other person, were the only people who knew about your – involvement. We had hoped that by wiping out AVALANCHE's headquarters and eliminating their leadership we could resolve the problem and keep your part in it a secret. But your actions today have made that impossible. You cannot be trusted not to do something that would irrevocably damage this company's future. By order of the President, you are to be taken back to Midgar and held in confinement until such time as he decides you've learnt your lesson."

Rufus tossed his head. "Is that all?"

Veld gritted his teeth, and Tseng could see he was fighting the urge to slap the arrogant smile from Rufus' face. "No," he said. "It isn't. You father also asked me to tell you that he understands why you've done what you've done, and he forgives you. All he wants is what any parent wants – that their children should be happy. But this is not the way."

"Hmm," said Rufus. "That's pretty much what I would have expected from the old fraud. The thing is, though, we're not on my father's turf here. Why don't you look up?"

Veld and the other Turks raised their faces. "Fuhito!" Aviva cried.

"Pleasure," said Fuhito, bending over the railing of the platform above their heads. Gravity pulled his glasses down his nose; he pushed them back up. "And as you can see, it is we who have you surrounded." He gestured at the score of AVALANCHE operatives running out from behind him to take up positions around the railing, their gunsights trained on the Turks.

"Good job," said Rufus. "I wasn't happy that you decided to occupy this reactor without my authorization, but since then the situation has changed. These Turks have been getting in my way for long enough. Kill them, and I'll overlook your insubordination this time."

"Rufus," said Tseng softly, "You cannot be serious."

"I've gathered them all here for you," Rufus called up. "It will be like shooting fish in a barrel."

"You fucking little piece of shit," hissed Reno.

Aviva clutched his arm.

The AVALANCHE operatives did not move.

"Kill them!" Rufus yelled. "All of them! But not Tseng!"

Fuhito giggled. "Tempting, but I'm afraid I shall have to decline."

"What do you mean?" Rufus shouted. "I'm ordering you to kill them."

"Please understand," said Fuhito, "It's entirely personal. We've been downsizing recently and you've become surplus to requirements -"

Commander Veld had begun to speak to his Turks in an undertone. "We have to get Rufus out of here. We're going to make for the east entrance. Once we put at least one floor between us and them they won't be able to get a clear shot. The important thing is to keep moving –"

"You can't do that to me!" Rufus was shouting. "Backstabber! Traitor! I'll – I'll cut off your funding!"

"I don't need your money, Shinra whelp. I've made alternative arrangements – "

"- Reno, Tys, you'll move first. Put some voltage into that metal they're standing on. If that doesn't knock them out completely, it should incapacitate them. The rest of you will surround the Vice-President. Protect him with your lives. Tseng and I will cover you and bring up the rear. No one gets left behind. Understood?"

"All right, everybody," Fuhito sang out. "Kill them!"

"Move!" shouted the Commander.

The rubber soles of the AVALANCHE operatives' shoes prevented the Turks' lightning bolts from running straight into their bodies, but wherever they rested their guns on the railings, sparks popped and the electricity buzzed up through their arms to their heads, standing their hair on end. In terror, nerve-numbed, and from sheer surprise, half of them dropped their weapons.

The rest fired wildly. Bullets ricocheted off walls, stairs, walkways. The Turks returned fire. Fuhito pulled out a mako gun and aimed it at Rufus' head.

"Duck!" shouted Skeeter, pushing him down.

"Keep moving," yelled the Commander.

Rude took a ball of materia from his pocket and cast it over his shoulder. It hit one of the buttresses holding up the catwalk: the metal shuddered, and, with a rumble, imploded.

"Nice," said Reno.

"Earth," Rude observed. "Wasn't sure."

Three AVALANCHE operatives, who had been standing on the catwalk when Rude broke it, were now clinging to the twisted wreckage, calling desperately for help, their feet dangling seventy feet above the green pool of mako.

"Keep moving," yelled the Commander.

"Stop! Fuhito, stop!" cried a woman's voice from high above them. "Our people are dying! Let them go. It doesn't matter."

"No!" cried Veld. He dropped his gun and curled into a crouch, both hands pressed over his ears.

Tseng sank down next to him. "Sir – Commander – did you get hit? What's wrong?"

The woman's voice rang out, "You, and you – go help your comrades before they fall!"

"Stop it!" Veld shouted. "How are they doing this? Stop it! Stop it!"

"Sir – " Tseng tried to pull Veld's hands away from his ears. "Sir – please – we have to keep moving – "

"What's wrong with the Commander?" cried Mink.

"No!" Veld groaned. "No! No! Felicia! Felicia! No!"

"Sir, please – your daughter's not here, she's dead – come on – " Tseng fought to get Veld back onto his feet.

Then, amidst the burst of gunfire and the rattle of bullets, a small voice, a girl's voice, said, "Daddy?"

The woman had come to stand beside Fuhito, gripping the railing tightly with both hands. One of her hands looked swollen and had a strange, unhealthy sheen.

"That's their leader!" Aviva exclaimed. "Elfe!"

"Daddy?" said the woman again.

"Sir – don't listen to them," cried Tseng. "It's a trick. Felicia's dead."

Veld raised his head and looked at her.

"Felicia," he said.

Next moment, Fuhito had twisted Elfe's arm behind her back and was holding the mako gun to her head. "So this is your daughter, eh, Commander? That's useful to know. Though I can't suppose you want her back, considering how you threw her onto the trash heap in the first place. Ah, Shears – " for the big man had this moment entered from the door into the reactor core – "Are the explosives in place?"

"What are you doing with Elfe?" Shears made his hands into fists. "Let her go."

"You know what?" said Fuhito. "I don't think I need you any more, either."

He fired the mako gun at a point just in front of Shear's feet. It cut through the metal like a hot knife through butter, and before Shears even had time to cry out, he fell. Veld lunged to his feet, but Tseng and Tys grabbed hold of him and held him back.

"We're going now," said Fuhito. "You should do the same." He pushed Elfe across the platform and through a doorway, shutting the door behind him.

"Come on," shouted Tseng. "Let's get out of here."

"Look," said Rufus. "Ravens."

Four of the black-clad operatives were blocking the doorway that led to sunlight and safety.

Tseng gave the orders: "Mink, Rude, keep close to Rufus – just get him out of here. Reno, Skeet, Aviva, deal with the Ravens. Tys, help me with the Commander…."

Veld was standing like one stunned by a blow between the eyes. They had to hit him, shove him, drag him towards the door. He was a dead weight. Finally, Tseng slapped his cheek. "Sir! This place is going to blow up any minute! Help us!"

"I don't see how it's possible," said Veld.

"Oh God," cried Tseng. "Just pull him, Tys. Come on, sir, come on – "

Finally they were all outside, squinting in the bright light, taking deep breaths. "Don't stop," Tseng told them. "Keep going…."

One after another they ran across the railway bridge, and when they finally reached the solid ground on the far side they threw themselves onto it gratefully, Rufus as well as the rest. The fresh air, or the sunshine, or both, had restored Veld to his senses: he brought up the rear as he always did, guarding his Turks' backs. Then he counted them. Then he said, "Where's Aviva?"

"There," Rude pointed.

She was standing in the doorway of the reactor, a hand pressed down on her thigh.

"Come on!" they shouted.

She tried to run towards the bridge, but she was limping badly. Behind her in the doorway, the bulky shadow of a man loomed.

Reno jumped to his feet. "I'll get her – "

Before he could move, the reactor exploded.


	30. The Sleep of Reason

**CHAPTER 30: THE SLEEP OF REASON  
_In which both Veld and Rufus attempt to explain themselves to Tseng, and Tseng finds himself left in charge_**

**_

* * *

_**

Night fell on the hills of Corel. For three hours the Turks had been searching the smouldering ruins of the reactor, turning over every twisted sheet of metal, digging under every chunk of scorched concrete, calling Aviva's name. Now they were taking a short rest, gathered around the little fire Skeet had made from brushwood he'd gleaned on the hillside. They were hungry, and tired, and thirsty, and they were determined not to give up.

Rufus rose from the rock where he had been sitting alone, at some distance from the others, and walked up the hillside to stand beside Tseng, who, for perhaps the thirtieth time, was scanning the wreckage with a pair of binoculars.

"Face it," said Rufus. "She's dead."

Tseng put down the binoculars, gave him a long look of contempt, and returned to searching for some sign of the lost Turk.

"Tseng – "

"Don't bother."

Rufus sighed. "I realize that whatever I say now is going to sound like a poor attempt to excuse myself, but you have to believe me when I tell you that it wasn't meant to be like this. They were supposed to kill my father – "

"Shut up."

"- in Junon, three years ago, but that failed, and then again last year, when they ended up kidnapping Hojo instead. Then they were meant to do it at the rocket launch, in April, but they failed me again. What Veld said back there… Surely you can see it isn't true? I've never controlled them. Fuhito's never done what I wanted him to do. They were using me all along – "

Tseng cut him off with a gesture. Pointing down the hill at his Turks, he said, "The only reason they haven't killed you is because of who your father is. I'd say you should be ashamed of yourself, but I know you're incapable of it. Just get away from me."

Rufus was momentarily silenced.

Then he began again, "If you weren't so good at what you do – "

"Tseng?" the Commander's voice called out of the darkness. "Can you come here?"

"Coming, sir." Tseng turned to Rufus. "Stay here. Keep away from them. Don't provoke them. And don't try to escape."

"Of course I won't," said Rufus. "Where would I go?"

.

Tseng ran down the hill to the shadows beyond the firelight, where Commander Veld stood waiting for him. In his hand Veld held a torch, which he shone down a path that led away from the Turks' little camp and into the wilderness. "Walk with me," he said.

The path was narrow. Veld led; Tseng followed. Neither of them spoke, but Tseng knew what was coming, and he had already made up his mind what he was going to do. Wherever the Commander went, he would go.

They walked for perhaps five, ten minutes, up and over a hill. Then Veld stopped, turned off his torch, and turned around. Above them the sky was pitch black, velvety black: the dust thrown up by the explosion had blotted out the moon and the stars. The only light was the reddish-green glow from the smouldering reactor on the other side of the hill, and all Tseng could see of Veld's face was a faint white glimmer where his eyes were, a quick flash of teeth when he opened his mouth to say,

"I have to leave you here."

"I'm – "

"No," Veld cut him short. "You're not coming with me. That's an order. You have a job to do. This is my business, not yours. Not Shinra's."

Tseng knew it was his duty to remain calm. The Commander wasn't thinking rationally. Of course, the shock had overwhelmed him. AVALANCHE were very cunning.

"Sir, I understand how much you want to believe that Elfe is your daughter – "

Veld made a snarling noise. "No you don't. You have no idea. I know you think you do, but you can't even begin to imagine. She's my child."

_And what am I?_

"Sir, I'm sorry, but that can't be true. It's impossible. You said she was dead."

"I was told she was dead."

"Who told you she was dead?"

Veld did not immediately answer. The gleam that was the whites of his eyes flicked downwards, then across at the ruined reactor, then off to the right, anywhere but into Tseng's eyes – and Tseng, unnerved by this hesitancy in someone normally so direct, sensed that he was about to be told something that would change his world forever –

"Hojo," said Veld bleakly.

_No! – _Tseng bit down on his tongue so as not to blurt it out loud.

Veld said, "I never told you what happened – "

_Don't – _

" – After the accident – "

_Don't tell me. I don't want the burden of your secrets - _

"No, the bombing. The bombing I ordered – "

_But they said it had been a mistake. Broken line of communication. Wrong coordinates. It wasn't your fault – _

"After Kalm was bombed, Hojo told me to take them to Nibelheim – "

"Nibelheim?"

"His lab was there – "

"Who?"

"What?"

"You said 'take them'. Who? Take who?"

"The survivors – "

"Like in Nibelheim?"

"Yes."

"The same cover-up?"

"Yes."

"That's what you meant what you said it had been done before?"

"Yes, dammit."

For a moment, neither of them could speak.

Veld rubbed a hand over his eyes. "My wife – she was dead. But Felicia…. when I got her to Nibelheim, she was still alive. But barely. And I'd lost my arm. I knew Hojo could fix me. I thought he could fix her. So I – "

_I don't want to hear this; I don't want to have to understand - _

" – I gave her to him. I gave her to him, Tseng. I knew what he was doing with the others, but I thought – I thought he understood she was mine. I thought he could save her. After they worked on my arm I was out of it for almost a week. When I woke up, he told me she was dead."

"Didn't you ask to see the body?"

"He said it had been destroyed. In the process."

"What process?"

"Of trying to keep her alive. My memory is that he said that, but maybe I simply assumed."

Tseng stared at this man he had known all his life, and for a moment it felt as if he was looking at a stranger. "The Professor told you she was dead, and you believed him? Knowing what he's like?"

"Yes! It made sense – No, I mean it was what I deserved. Why should I have been allowed to save her, when so many people had died because of me?"

Both men fell silent. From over the hill they heard voices: Skeet, Reno, Mink, preparing to continue the search for Aviva. They sounded much further away than they really were.

"You made us leave Nibelheim," said Tseng, remembering.

"Not soon enough."

"You didn't let him have Mozo."

"I didn't want you to become like me. There are some things nobody should be asked to do."

"But that's what we're for, isn't it? Because somebody has to do them. When I was young, you told me that. You said we get our hands dirty so that other people won't have to." Tseng hesitated, then added, "I was proud of that. It made me feel that I… had value."

"Yes. It was designed to. After all, you had no choice, did you? But I had a choice. What I did to you… Maybe you'd have been better off if I'd left you where I found you – "

"Please don't say that."

"Ifalna's the one who said it. She wanted me to send you away, back to Wutai, put you in school there. Give you a chance…"

Veld had to pause for a moment, breathe deeply, pull himself together. Tseng waited, his heart sick and heavy in his chest, and soon Veld went on:

"But I couldn't bear to let you go. Especially after Felicia died. I never meant to make you in my image, Tseng. I just wanted you to live_. _You were such a little scrapper. I knew you could be someone if you just had a chance. I wanted to give you a life that was worth living. But this was all I had."

The suggestion implicit in Veld's words – that Tseng's life had been a mistake, that Veld had screwed up, that he was _sorry_ – hurt the younger Turk with a pain that was almost beyond bearing.

He wanted to raise an objection, defend himself; defend his Commander, too. "You made me – " he tried to say, but his breath seemed trapped in his throat. He squared his shoulders, and tried again. "You made me useful – "

"More than useful. So much more than useful. Don't you know that? Oh, my boy, come here – "

With both hands Veld reached out and pulled his lieutenant into the kind of spine-bending, rib-cracking bear hug they had not exchanged since Tseng was nine or ten years old. Tseng, still hurt, still angry, and still, after all these years and all the things he had done for this man's sake, afraid - more afraid than ever, because the thing he had feared all his life was happening here, now, and there was nothing he could do to turn it aside, nobody he could fight - felt, in his helplessness, as if the years were falling away from him: he was a small boy again, clinging to the only rock he knew.

Veld released him and took a step back, his fists, the real one and the false one, resting lightly either side of Tseng's neck. He said, "If it hadn't been for you, son, I would have died when Felicia… When I thought I'd lost her."

"You were gone so long, and you were so different when you came back –"

"You were afraid of my arm, I remember. You couldn't stand to look at it."

"I tried not to show it."

"I know." Veld smiled at him. "You were always so transparent. I was ready to die when I lost Felicia, but you wouldn't let me. You needed me. I couldn't leave you. You made me want to live."

The Commander paused. "And now, you have to let me go."

"I can't –" Tseng choked. He could not finish the sentence.

"Yes, you can."

"I want to go with you."

"No one can come with me. You're needed here." He glanced past Tseng in the direction of the Turks' voices. "They need you. Without you, they'd be lost, and all my work would be wasted." Veld took hold of Tseng by the shoulders. "Listen to me. Listen. I'm coming back. I promise. I'm going to find my daughter and bring her back. You have to hold the fort until I return."

"It might not be her. It could easily be a ruse to weaken us by luring you away."

"I'm fully aware of that." The words were one thing: sensible, cautious. Veld's tone was another - full of hope, and longing to believe. "It doesn't make any difference. I have to find her. I have to know. Tseng, listen to me. Are you listening?"

"Yes, sir."

"There are practical things we need to discuss. The first is this. Don't let any of the others try to follow me. You have to hold them together. Keep them busy. Keep their pride up. The second is money. I need you to sort that out for me. The Old Man's bound to freeze my bank accounts when he finds out I'm gone. You'll have to open a new account for me with First Midgar. Put it in the name of Peter Fielding. Got that?"

"Peter Fielding?"

"It's an old alias. I haven't used it for years. Write to me when you've set up the account to let me know the details. You can send it to Peter Fielding care of the inn in Costa del Sol."

"You'll stay in touch?"

"Don't count on it. I'm not going to compromise your safety. Here's my keys." He was sounding more like his usual self now. Curt. Briskly efficient. Impatient to tie up the loose ends so that he could be gone. "What else? Oh, of course - Rufus."

"Does the President know we have him?"

"Yes. You'll need to take him back tomorrow. He's to be held on the secret floor for the time being. Nobody outside the department knows about his connection with AVALANCHE, and the President wants to keep it that way. As far as the Board's concerned, he's gone off on another business trip. I don't know how long the Old Man intends his punishment to last, but…. "

"What, sir?"

"Hang on to him as long as you can. See if you can make him one of us - for his own sake as much as ours. His father's combination of neglect and indulgence has nearly ruined that boy. There's a lot that's rotten in Rufus, but there's a lot that's worth saving, too, and I believe the bad is only skin-deep. He looks up to you; that's a sign that all is not lost, yet. I think you could make something useful out of him. To coin a phrase." Veld paused. "Kill them all, but not Tseng, eh?"

Tseng's features contorted in disgust. "He's already started with his specious excuses…"

"Turks don't make excuses. You'll have to teach him that."

Veld paused. Placing his hands on Tseng's shoulders, he pulled him forward and stared deeply into his face, eyes straining through the darkness as if determined to commit every lash and pore to memory. Then, swiftly and firmly, he turned Tseng around to face in the direction of the other Turks' voices.

"Don't look back," he said. "You'll want to be able to say you don't know which direction I went in."

Faithfully Tseng retraced his steps along the path to the top of the hill. Here he stopped. From this vantage point he could look down on the glowing wreckage, the silhouettes of the Turks moving around their fire, and over on the slope of hillside to the right he could see the figure of Rufus standing perfectly still, a patch of grey again the matt black sky. There was a part of Tseng, the better part, the Turk in him, that would have liked to obey Veld's last order absolutely, and walk on without a backward glance. But he could not make himself do it. He turned; his eyes searched the darkness for some sign of movement, and after a moment he switched on his torch and shone its beam back in the direction he had come. But Veld was gone, and there was nothing to be seen.

.

None of the Turks wanted to stop looking for Aviva. Eventually Tseng reached a compromise: he would leave two of them behind to continue the search, and take the rest back to the helicopters, so that they could eat and sleep. Though they were almost dead on their feet, everyone wanted to stay; a quarrel threatened to break out, exacerbated by their fatigue and their hunger, which Tseng resolved by choosing Skeeter and Reno. He told them that as soon as he reached the helicopters he would fly back and drop them some supplies, and in the morning they would be relieved.

"We'll keep looking till we find her," Skeet insisted.

Tseng did not commit himself to a reply.

None of them, not even Tys, had asked him where the Commander was. He suspected they were not asking for the same reason he was not telling. There was a limit to how much they could bear.

Tseng made the others go ahead of him, following the lower tracks across the brick viaduct and the trestle. Rufus he kept tight by his side at the rear. The walk took almost two hours. As they trudged on in the darkness, their anger against the Vice-President grew more vocal; by the time they reached the helicopters Tseng did not dare to leave Rufus alone with them, so he handcuffed the boy to the co-pilot's seat and took him along while he flew the supplies to Skeeter and Reno.

By the time he returned, the Turks were almost all asleep, either curled up in the helicopters or rolled in blankets on the grass. Hunter alone remained awake, still keeping watch, valiant in her steadfastness at this most humble of tasks. Tseng felt a dawning respect for her. Perhaps, as the Commander had always believed, she did have what it took. "It's OK," he told her. "Get some rest now."

Inside his own helicopter he locked the doors, spread blankets on the floor, and then, accepting there was no help for it, fastened one of the handcuffs around Rufus' ankle, and the other around his own. Rufus watched his movements with a detached curiosity, the way the office cat sometimes did.

"Is this how it's going to be from now on?" Rufus asked. From his tone it was difficult to tell whether he found their enforced closeness a good thing, a bad thing, or a thing indifferent.

_ He is a burden to me_, thought Tseng. _A burden, and a duty, that I did not seek. But what am I to him? A friend? Is that how he sees me? A kind of big brother? _ _His rescue party? His old retainer? His slave?_

There was something in Rufus' face that reminded Tseng of Cissnei. It was not simply that they were both traitors; not just the selfishness of beauty. The impassivity in the youth's face, the coolness of his nerves, his fearless eyes, were the mask to a passionate determination. He would never give up. This was a set back, nothing more.

In that moment, Tseng hated him.

Turning on his side, he edged as far away from Rufus as the cuffs would allow. Rufus did not speak again. Soon, from the shallowness of his breathing, Tseng could tell he was asleep. The floor of the helicopter was hard and cold; the blankets were thin and scratchy. In the quietness Tseng could hear his own heart beating. Despite his exhaustion, he took a long time to fall asleep.

He was woken by the sound of a phone ringing in his ear.

"Tseng? It's me."

Painful hope filled Tseng's breast. He could neither speak nor breathe.

"Don't talk," said Veld. "Just listen. I've found Aviva. She's alive, but she's unconscious. The one called Shears rescued her. They fell together into the mako pit. She's taken a heavy dose. You need to come get her. I've left her in a grove of flowering trees next to a stream about an hour's flight south-west of the reactor. It's unmissable, but just to be on the safe side I'm leaving this phone switched on with her. You can track the signal if you need to." Veld paused, and said softly, "Tseng?"

"I'm here."

"I've been thinking. Do you remember what Ifalna Gast said to me, the day you – the day she died? That I didn't know what I was looking for, and would find it when I least expected? I think this is what she meant. I think she knew Felicia wasn't dead. And she didn't tell me."

"Sir – "

"I told you she was cruel. But then again, I deserved it. Even if I find my daughter, I don't know if she'll forgive me. This is good-bye, Tseng. I won't be calling you again."

"Sir, wait – "

The line went dead.

"He's gone after her, hasn't he?" said Rufus, leaning up on one elbow.

Tseng did not bother to reply. Taking the key from his pocket, he unshackled himself and got to his feet. Rufus stretched and yawned. "I never even knew that Veld _had_ a daughter. Or a family. I thought he'd always lived in the office. But still…. I can see that it might be true. Elfe could easily be Veld's child. The resemblance between them is striking, and not just in looks. What a bizarre coincidence."

"There's no coincidence," said Tseng, thinking, _we reap what we sow._

"But then I'm forced to wonder, how can a man lose his own child and not know it?"

"I'm not going to discuss the Commander with you."

"Tseng, you know as well as I do that he's a marked man now, whether Elfe's his daughter or not. My father won't let him simply walk away like this, not with everything he's got inside his head. "

"There's no need to trouble the President with unfounded rumours," Tseng warned him. "The Commander is tailing AVALANCHE. That's all anyone needs to know."

The rest of the Turks were getting up. Soon the helicopters were airborne. Rude peeled away to pick up Skeet and Reno. Mink and Tys were sent on ahead to help Knox make preparations for Rufus' imprisonment. Tseng himself flew southwest, following Veld's directions, and found Aviva in the trees by the river, badly bruised and unconscious, though her pulse was strong. When he pushed back one of her eyelids he saw the white of the eye was tinted a faint blue. Hunter helped him lift Aviva into the helicopter. They set their course for Midgar, flying into the rising sun.

Rufus was back in the co-pilot's seat, hands and feet shackled. They had been flying for about half an hour when he sat up, suddenly alert, his eyes fixed out the port window. "Look at the smoke," he said. "Corel is burning. He must have sent in the army."

Hunter had seen it too, and was calling out to Tseng from the hold. Tseng pushed right on the cyclic, rolling the helicopter away towards the south. Rufus craned his neck, continuing to watch the smoke rise for as long as it remained in sight. Then he shifted round in his seat to look at Tseng. "You were at Banora, weren't you?" he demanded. "And then Nibelheim. And now Corel. Don't you see? This is the only answer he can think of. For _everything_." Angry frustration rose in Rufus' voice. "What's going to be left of this world when my time comes? A pile of ashes? It's such a waste. That's what I can't stand, Tseng. The _waste_."

* * *

_Sorry it took so long to update. This chapter was the hardest of all so far to write. I'm still not sure about it, so if anyone has anything to say about what works or, more importantly, doesn't work for them, especially in the conversation between Tseng and Veld, I would welcome your comments._

_Just in case any of my readers don't know, the title of this chapter is taken from a Goya etching, "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters" which you can find here: .org/wiki/File:Francisco_de_Goya-_The_Sleep_of_Reason_Produces__


	31. Limited Liability

**CHAPTER 31: LIMITED LIABILITY  
**_**In which Rufus gets what he deserves, and Reno and Charlie have a conversation about Aviva**_

_[follows directly on from the events of the previous chapter - about five or six hours maximum have passed]_

_

* * *

_

_Afternoon of the same day; Midgar_

In the surveillance room on the floor between floors, Rufus Shinra lay on his back on a narrow camp bed, staring up at the ceiling. The Turks had fastened a heavy shackle around his right ankle, and a lighter one around his left wrist, and had run a length of piano wire between the two. Walking with any freedom was impossible, though there was nothing to prevent him getting up and shuffling around the room if he chose. Reno sat in a chair opposite, his rod across his knees. He looked half-asleep, but appearances were deceptive.

Rufus was still wearing the same suit in which he'd set out for Corel the previous morning. It was grey now, sweat-stained, blood-stained, dirty and crumpled. He'd washed his face in the bucket of water the Turks had provided for him, but had not yet been allowed to shower. Reno would have to unshackle him for that, and Reno didn't feel like doing him the favour.

On the other side of the room the surveillance monitors were blurry with activity. It was as if the world were spinning all around them; as if they were at the pivot of the world, a place of perfect stillness encircled by constant motion. Rufus continued to stare up at the ceiling. Reno watched Rufus. The computers hummed. The clock ticked.

.

_Meanwhile, on the 48__th__ floor…._

"Rude," said Tseng, "I want you to call that nursing home we sometimes use in Kalm and book Aviva in under the name of – " He thought about it for a moment – "Polly Fielding. Knox and Hunter can fly her down there later this afternoon."

"How is she, sir?"

"Still in a coma. The level of mako in her body is very high. They can't say when she'll recover."

"Should she be moved?"

"I'm afraid she's not safe here. Her case is unusual, and there's a risk Hojo might get interested. I want to put her where he can't get his hands on her so easily. Oh, and take this. Store it in the materia room."

He put a small glowing sphere into the palm of Rude's hand. At first it appeared pale yellow, the colour of straw, but as they watched a delicate change came over its surface: it turned a faint rosy pink, and then green, like light falling through spring leaves. Suspended in the core of the sphere, or possibly forming a flaw in its structure, was a transparent, triangular crystal.

It resembled no materia either of them had seen before. Rude looked questioningly at the Boss.

"Label it North Corel Woodland, type unknown, with today's date. I found it in Aviva's pocket," Tseng explained.

His phone rang.

"The President is ready to see you now," said the Old Man's PA.

.

_In the surveillance room_

Rufus held out his shackled wrist towards Reno. "These really aren't necessary."

"Can't have you running out on us."

"That's just stupid. Where exactly do you suppose I could go?"

"Orders are orders."

"I want a bath."

"Yeah," said Reno. "You do stink. Just like a little piece of shit would."

Rufus' lip twitched irritably. "Tch," he muttered, and shifted onto his side, turning his face to the wall.

.

_On the 70__th__ floor_

"…And you're sure he's fine? They didn't hurt him at all?" the President asked Tseng.

"The medics have checked him, as you requested. He's in perfect health."

"You've done a good job, Tseng. A very good job. What a handful that boy is. Who'd have kids, eh? I've forgiven a lot, but this was going too far. So you've got him in the secret room now?"

"As you instructed, sir."

"Good. Excellent. Keep him there. Keep him busy. He's still got a lot to learn. I want you to reinstate his security clearance and make sure he has access to the network and the data bank – read-only, of course. I don't want him to lose touch with what's going on. He'll be running this company one day… just not yet, eh? Not yet."

Here the President paused. His little bright blue eyes looked at Tseng expectantly.

"Is that all, sir?" asked Tseng.

"I'm not sure. Is there anything else you'd like to tell me? Anything that you think I ought to know?"

"I believe we've covered everything – "

"Damn it!" The President brought his fist down hard on his desk: pens and paperweights jumped. He fixed Tseng with a glare like a steel rivet. "Where's Veld?"

"I told you, sir, he's pursuing the AVALANCHE leaders – "

"He never spoke to me. I never authorized that action. He's walked out on us, hasn't he? He's left the Turks. Hasn't he? Answer me!"

"No – he's coming back – "

"Hah! Is that what he thinks? That he can come and go as he pleases? Does he think he's indispensable? He expects me to overlook not only his own defection, but the fact that _his daughter_ is the ringleader of these terrorists who've been holding us to ransom for the last three years – "

"No!" exclaimed Tseng, "That's not true - No one knows for sure who she is –" meanwhile wondering frantically, _who told him?_

"Don't lie to me! I've spoken to Rufus – "

_How? When? He's been with me or Reno the whole time. Wait - the medical exam… Fool that I am! I should have taken his phone - _

"Well, Veld's made his choice," said the Old Man. "He knows what the consequences of disloyalty are. As of this moment, he is stripped of all rank. I'm appointing you the new Head of the Department of Administrative Research, and my first order to you is this: find Veld, and when you find him, kill him."

.

_Surveillance room_

"I need a slash," said Reno. "Mind if I use your pisspot?"

Rufus waved a hand. "Be my guest."

The stream of urine rattled in the enamel pan. Rufus rolled over to watch, his eyes flicking up and down Reno's body, but if his aim was to unnerve his gaoler he had chosen the wrong target; Reno took his time, and when he was finished he grunted unselfconsciously, zipped up his flies, strolled back to his seat and sat down, resting one foot on the opposite knee, his rod slung over his shoulder.

"Hunh," sniffed Rufus.

"There's something that's been bothering me, V.P.," said Reno, in the tone of one making casual conversation. "I've been chewing it over all day, but I just can't work it out. Maybe you can explain it to me."

Rufus shifted onto his back and closed his eyes.

"You don't seem interested," said Reno.

"Don't try to psych me out. I know how you Turks operate."

"Uh-huh. You should do. You've been hanging around us enough. So tell me. What was that about in the reactor yesterday? What you said to Fuhito. 'Kill them all, but not Tseng'. I mean, what the fuck?"

"You shouldn't take it so personally. I was trying to achieve something, and you kept getting in the way."

"But not Tseng?"

Rufus took a few seconds to answer. "I've known Tseng all my life."

"You think you know him?" Reno sounded amused. "All these years you've been following him around like a lost puppy, and you don't know the first thing about him. "

Rufus indulged in a little roll of the eyes.

"You don't get us at all, do you?" said Reno.

"Heidegger was right. You _are_ more trouble than you're worth."

"Listen, V.P. You try to drive a wedge between us, and I swear to god – " Reno bared his teeth – "I'll kill you."

Rufus heaved a long-suffering sigh. "No you won't. You'd never get away with it."

"Maybe I don't care."

"Oh no, now I'm going to have nightmares."

Leaning his shoulders into the wall, Reno tipped his chair, balancing on its two back legs. He took out his cigarettes, lit one, smoked it. Rufus recommenced his study of the ceiling tiles. Reno smoked the cigarette down to the filter, stubbed it out on the sole of his boot, and flicked it into the bin.

The door burst open.

Tseng had put on his gloves. He crossed the floor in a couple of strides. With both fists he grabbed hold of Rufus' lapels, lifted him off the bed, and threw him against the wall so hard that the panel buckled.

Reno's chair legs hit the floor with a clatter. He perched on the edge of his seat, and his eyes weren't drowsy any longer.

Rufus slid to the floor. He stared up at Tseng, but did not say a word. Tseng bent down and hauled him to his feet. "Stand up," he ordered. His ungentle hands searched through Rufus' clothing until he found the phone. He threw it to Reno, who caught it backhanded.

Tseng took hold of Rufus' hair by the roots and pulled his head back. In his ear, enunciating each word precisely, he said, "I told you not to tell him."

"I don't know what - "

The back of Tseng's gloved hand smacked Rufus across the mouth, splitting the boy's lip and drawing blood. "Don't answer me back."

The boy's blue eyes glared daggers at Tseng – but also something else; there was more in that burning look than simple anger. Reno couldn't put a name to it, yet he was sure he'd seen it before… though not on Rufus. It was like…it was like… _hunger_ -

Rufus mumbled through his thick lip, "How dare – "

Tseng's fist drove deep into Rufus' solar plexus, punching the air from his lungs. Rufus' legs buckled. Once again he fell to the floor, doubled up, retching and coughing.

Reno came to stand beside Tseng. "What happened, Boss?"

"He told the Old Man about the Commander and Felicia."

Reno looked at Rufus. "D'you have a death wish or something?"

Rufus did not try to reply.

Tseng took a small key from his pocket and uncoupled Rufus' shackles, kicking them aside. "Stand up," he repeated.

"You want me to hold him for you, Boss?"

"No. He can stand by himself. Get up, Rufus."

The breast of the boy's grubby suit was flecked with bright spots of blood. Hand over hand he pulled himself upright, using the wall for support. His eyes stayed fixed on Tseng's face the whole time. There was fear in those eyes now – which was good; the kid was right to be afraid – but also, still, that something else, something so familiar it stirred prickles of empathy under Reno's skin, even though he had no word for what it was.

"Boss – " he said uneasily, "I'm not sure - "

"I'm not going to kill him. Rufus, take your jacket off," Tseng ordered curtly. "Put your shoulders back, and stand up straight. I'm going to teach you a lesson..."

.

_Four hours later…_

Outside the building, it was night. Inside, on the floor between floors, in the room without windows, Rude was now on duty. Open on the desk in front of him was a copy of _Love More, Loveless: A Metafictional Reinterpretation_, which he had found lying around in the junk-strewn basement corridors near the Sector 5 Reactor. He read it slowly, thoughtfully, and thoroughly. When he came to the end of each page he took hold of the top right corner with the tip of his thumb and forefinger, barely touching the paper, and turned it over without making a sound. Now and then he glanced up at the clock. It was not yet time to let Rufus out.

His eyes felt dusty. Ever since Nibelheim they'd been sensitive to harsh light. His throat and larynx had been damaged too, by the scorching heat and the fumes. The sunglasses, which he'd first adopted when he joined the Turks because he thought they made him look badass, were now a physical necessity. As was silence.

All of them had come back burnt from Nibelheim. But Rude had taken the most damage, because he'd gone further into the flames than the rest of them, and been the last to give up searching. He had more tar in his lungs now than Reno, probably. The docs had said it would kill him one day. "Something's gotta," he'd rasped in reply.

He couldn't sing any more – not the way he used to, soft and sweet and low, to the strum of his own guitar. That was the worst thing.

He'd never sung for Chelsy. There'd been so many things they'd talked about doing together, when all along she must have known that none of them would happen…. Yet his own regrets, as Rude was well aware, were only a drop in the sea of loss. Nats had never come home. Neither had Essai and Sebastian. Roz had never got the chance to marry her Phil. Knox never saw his children. Aviva would probably never wake up. They might never see the Chief again. And what about all the others, the ones whose names Rude did not know, the dead of Midgar and Junon and the Northern Continent, and now Corel, who had been buried together with the dreams they had never fulfilled? All because one spoiled rich boy could not wait….

Rude took off his sunglasses, rubbed his gritty eyes, and returned to his reading.

Some while later, the humming silence was interrupted by a faint scratching sound coming from the cooler room. Rude glanced up at the clock. Lost in his book, he had allowed more than half an hour to elapse past the time when he should have taken Rufus out of the punishment cell. According to Reno, the boy had been unconscious when they locked him up. Sounded like he was awake now.

Rude took out his phone and made a brief call. Then he went through the doorway into the dark room and flicked the switch, closing his eyes for a moment against the sudden burst of blue light. He crossed over to the first of a series of four narrow doors set low in the wall, unlocked it, and stood back to let the light shine into the cell. Rufus was lying on the floor, legs pulled to his chest, head tucked in. He opened his eyes, blinking hard, and after a moment said, "Ah. You."

Rude stretched out a hand. Rufus refused it, shaking his head slightly. With a clumsy rolling motion that was clearly painful, he got onto his hands and knees and crawled out into the light, stopping often to breathe.

Reno had whispered into Rude's ear that the Boss had 'lost it', and looking at Rufus now, Rude could see what he meant. The boy was scarcely recognizable. His face, pulpy with bruises, had swollen to twice its size. Black clots of blood caked his nostrils and matted his hair. His eyes were bloodshot slits. Ugliest of all was his back. It had been beaten to a shredded mess, presumably with a belt buckle. Rude winced at the sight. He couldn't tell which of the rusty strips were skin and which had been shirt. It would all have to come off. And it was going to hurt.

Rufus was trying to stand. His rubbery legs wouldn't hold him. He staggered and sat down, hard.

Again Rude held out his hand.

"I – can do it," Rufus insisted.

"Any bones broken?"

"Are you – implying – your boss doesn't know – what he's doing?"

Rude shrugged.

Abandoning the struggle to remain upright, Rufus lay on his side, taking shallow breaths between clenched teeth. Judging from the stiffness with which he held himself, a rib or two had been injured. Rude dug into his pocket, took out a little dark green ball, crouched down, and held it out. Rufus stared at it. "What's that? Materia?"

"Cure."

"Oh, right. All my pain will - disappear, just like magic. No, thanks."

"You sure?"

"Will I – die – if I don't - ?"

"Your back will scar. But die? No."

"No." Rufus grimaced. "Tseng – is an artist. And I'm…. a piece of work. Aren't I? Don't you think – I deserve this?"

"Yeah," said Rude, "I do."

Without another word he bent down and picked Rufus up. The boy bit his lip to stop himself crying out. Rude slung him over his shoulder, carried him back to the surveillance room, and dumped him face down onto the bed. Then he went to the desk to get a pair of scissors. When he turned around, Rufus was looking at the shackles, which still lay on the floor where Tseng had kicked them.

"You aren't - going to put those back on me?"

"You can't even stand up," said Rude.

There was a knock at the door. Rude went to open it. Rosalind stood there, holding the steaming bowl of water he had asked for, a towel draped over her arm. Her face was pallid, her eyes a salty red; she had spent much of the day crying. She did not even glance at Rufus, but thrust the bowl and towel into Rude's arms and quickly left.

Rude dragged a chair over to the bed. He folded the towel over the chair, placed the bowl on its seat, and set to work cutting the ribbons of shirt from Rufus' back. Wherever the fabric had clotted to the flesh, he pulled it loose, mopping up the fresh blood with balled rags of stiff cotton. His fingers, capable of the finest manipulations of hair triggers, skilled in minute calibrations and the careful handling of the most volatile explosives, did not trouble themselves to be delicate with this task. Rufus bit down hard on the pillow. His hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. He shook from head to foot. But he did not make a sound.

_So he's stoic_, thought Rude. Not necessarily a good thing. Prolong the agony. He'd have to break in the end; only then could he be put back together. Reno said he was a quick learner. Well, they'd see.

.

_Twenty-four hours later…._

A long-legged figure was walking purposefully through the winding alleyways of the Sector Two slums. Wooden shacks with scrap-metal roofs and tin-can chimneys huddled close together on either side of his path. Up ahead a dim street-lamp cast a brownish pool of light; his shadow chased him to it, caught him up, and split four ways when he stopped directly under its bulb. Then it could be seen that he was wearing a dark blue suit and tie, and his hair was reddish-gold. A pair of sunglasses rode in his top pocket.

At the far end of the alley, a fire was burning in an old oil drum. He made his way towards its brightness. Men stood in a circle around the flames, warming their hands. Briefly he spoke to one, who pointed across the road at a rusty freight container fitted with an old plastic shower curtain in place of a door. Above the doorway hung a sign painted on a piece of cardboard: _Live and Let Live. _ He pushed the rustling curtain aside, and went in.

Directly in front of him was a bar, of sorts – a long plank of wood resting on two stacks of beer cases. A mako lamp, turned down low, stood in the centre of the plank. Behind the bar a child of indeterminate sex was wiping glasses with a cloth. More glasses were stacked in a plastic bucket, half-filled with soapy water, which stood on the floor. Music jangled from an ancient cassette player.

He looked around. The place was empty, but in the far corner was another door. He went through this, and found himself outside again, standing on a rickety porch lit by a string of cheap paper lanterns, red and green. At the end of the porch, sitting with his feet propped up on the crate that served as a table, was the man he sought, a skinny guy with tattooed cheekbones and a ring in his left earlobe, spikes of long crimson hair falling over his pale forehead. With him was a woman, a brassy, full-bodied blonde who looked as if she'd been around the block a few times.

He approached them. Reno lifted his head. His eyes narrowed. "What the hell are _you_ doing here?"

"Looking for you."

"Did Rude tell you where I was?"

"He knew I'd find you anyway. I'm due back in Junon tomorrow, early, but I needed to talk to you first."

"To _me_?"

The woman butted in, "Hey gorgeous, wanna talk to me? I'm a good listener."

Reno said, "Go do your lipstick or something, OK, babe?"

"Gimme a hundred gil and I'll just go," she countered.

Reno dug a crumpled note out of his pocket and gave it to her. She stuffed it into her bra, stood up, blew both men a kiss, and reeled away into the night. Reno pointed at the seat she had vacated. "You want to sit down, Charlie?"

Charlie sat, stretching his legs out in front of him.

"Drink?" asked Reno.

"No, thanks."

Reno gave his brittle smile. "So you're here for the pleasure of my company?"

He was only a little bit drunk. Charlie preferred Reno drunk, anyway. The booze softened his sarcastic edges, and sometimes even produced moments of honesty. "I've just come from Kalm," the older Turk said.

That got his attention. "You've seen her? How is she?"

"Fast asleep."

"She's not in any pain?"

"She looks peaceful. Like she's dreaming."

"Some dream," said Reno caustically. "So I guess you heard what happened, huh? About Rufus?"

"Tseng told me what happened at Corel."

"The little shit's got a lot to answer for. Still, he's always been a selfish prick. Tseng tell you about the Chief?"

"I know he's gone to -"

"He knew about Rufus all along. And he didn't even tell Tseng."

"Look, you can't blame Veld," said Charlie firmly. "He's been arguing for months that you should all be told. He said you couldn't do your jobs properly unless you knew. But the Old Man insisted on keeping it a secret."

"So you knew too?" Reno didn't sound surprised.

"Ever since I infiltrated them in Wutai," Charlie admitted. "Veld wanted to put him under house arrest then, but the Old Man didn't want to do anything that would draw attention to his son. He's terrified that Rufus' involvement with AVALANCHE will become public knowledge. And I'll tell you frankly, Reno – what with everything else that's been going on, I don't know if Shinra would survive the scandal. And without Shinra…."

Charlie threw his hands up in an abrupt gesture, meaning _everything – our world – falls apart._

"Yeah, well…" Reno's lip curled in a parody of a smile. "Company secrets blowing up in our faces, what's new about that? Isn't that what we're paid for? To clean up when the shit hits the fan? To take one for the team? And you know what? Veev'd be proud if she knew. She always took everything about this job so seriously. So I hope she's having sweet dreams. She's earned them."

The child from behind the bar put its head around the door. Reno called for a double. While they waited, Charlie lit a cigar and offered Reno one. "Not my cup of tea, old boy," Reno mocked, mildly. He took out a packet of cigarette papers and some tobacco cut with an oily friable substance, and rolled a fat spliff on his knee, licking along the paper's edge to seal it tight. His drink, a cloudy white liquid speckled with floating black bits, was brought to him in a chipped tumbler. Charlie picked up the glass and sniffed. The fumes made his eyes water. Coughing, he asked, "What do they distill this from?"

"Whatever they find."

"You could drive a truck on it."

"Sure. It's soul diesel." Reno took the glass from Charlie and nursed it in his hands, staring absent-mindedly into its milky swirls. "So – did Tseng tell you about the Chief's daughter? Elfe?"

Charlie nodded. 'That – did come as a surprise to me, I must admit."

"Too bad you missed snuffing her when you had the chance."

"That's one way of looking at it."

"You mean there's another?" Reno threw back the shot in one gulp, and set the empty glass down hard on the table. "Look, no offense, Charlie, but I'm not really in the mood for conversation. You didn't hunt me down here to tell me stuff I know already. So what exactly is it you want?"

The older Turk hesitated, aware that he needed to choose his next words carefully. Reno's rather haphazard intelligence was easy to underestimate, and the last thing Charlie wanted to do was betray a secret that had not been shared with him in the first place.

He said, "I suppose you could call it a favour."

Reno laughed, "From _me_?" His tone walked the knife edge between incredulity and cynicism: _What makes you think I could help you? There's some crap job you want doing, is that it?_

Charlie couldn't really blame him. He didn't dislike Reno – how could he, when Reno reminded him so much of his own younger self? Arrogant and casually cruel, his anger masquerading as world-weariness, his hurt turned inside-out so that it looked like an indifference to pain… Wasn't it, in fact, precisely _because_ Reno put him in mind of his own self at twenty-four that Charlie felt concerned? Aviva could scarcely have chosen a worse object for the unrequited passions of her adolescent heart – and if she had ever asked his advice on the subject, he, Charlie, wouldn't have minced his words. It took one to know one, as the saying went.

But she'd kept it all bottled up inside. He had guessed the truth from the clues she scattered: the things she said and didn't say; the frequency with which she dropped Reno's name into conversations; the way her eyes followed that red head around a room.

Cautiously, he said, "I'm not asking the favour for myself. It's for Aviva."

Reno shot him another doubtful sideways look, and took a long drag on his spliff. "Can't imagine what use _I_'d be. But all right. Name it."

Still Charlie hesitated – and Reno, misreading his uncertainty, exclaimed, "Hey, you know, if there's something I can do for her, sure I'll do it. I owe her that, at least."

"What do you mean?"

"What happened to her… Look, don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying it isn't the little shit's fault. And yeah, it's partly your fault as well, and the Old Man's, and the company's… But it was _my_ job to look after her in Corel. I shouldn't have let her get left behind. We were partners. If it had been the other way around, she'd have had my back the whole time."

_He really doesn't have an inkling_, thought Charlie. Well, that was hardly surprising. He'd been so badly burned over the whole Cissnei business, naturally he would put the blinkers on when he went into the office. Basic self-protection… Charlie had once done exactly the same after his own intense, disastrous fall from grace with a colleague whom he'd loved, for a little while, more than the mission, or his job, or his own life; whom he would have died to protect.

And that, probably, was exactly what Aviva had been doing when she got left behind: guarding Reno's back. Making sure he got out safely. Keeping him alive.

"She was a great little Turk," Reno went on. "That's why it's all such fucking _shit_. Why is it always the good ones who get taken?"

"She's not dead," said Charlie firmly, "So don't start talking as if she were. That won't help her at all."

Reno took another pull on his roll-up. His aquamarine eyes were glassy, their pupils huge – as if they were taking in more, saw more, than usual. He gave Charlie a long, considering look, and said, "I've always wondered. Just what is she to you, anyway? Old boy?"

Charlie wasn't sure he'd heard aright. "What?"

"She told me you were just friends, but you don't seriously expect me to buy that, do you? I mean, come on, Legend. It's not like you've ever given a shit what anyone else thinks. And she's a cute kid, isn't she? So eager to please – "

"Just hold it right there," said Charlie. "Let's get a couple of things straight. One, she's young enough to be my daughter, and Old Charlie doesn't mess with little girls. Two, it's none of your business. Got that?"

Reno was undeterred. "You started this conversation: you made it my business. Can't imagine you rushing off to Kalm to visit any of the rest of us on _our_ sickbeds. So what's the deal with Veev? Why do you care about her? You've never cared about anyone before."

Charlie felt his temper flare. Who the hell was this young man, this boy, to talk as if he knew the first thing about Charlie's life, or the people who had mattered to him? He was tempted to kick the table over and walk away – or, better, slug Reno one in his mouthy presumptuous face… But the Legend was too old for that, and too wise, or wiser than he had been at Reno's age, at least. He saw the hole opening in front of him, and took a deep breath, and stepped back.

"This isn't about me," he replied. "If you don't want to help her, just say so, and I'll go. If you do, then listen."

Reno leaned back, folding his arms. "No-fly zone, huh? OK, I get the message. So. Do what you came for. Speak."

"You need to go and see her."

Reno snorted. "What? That's it? That's the favour?"

"She needs you to keep visiting her. She needs you to keep talking to her. For as long as it takes -"

"Hang on." A little heat had crept into Reno's voice. "Just hang on a fucking minute. You came here to ask me _that_? You thought I needed to be asked?"

"It's important that she isn't forgotten -"

"Shit, man – first you ruin my evening, and then you insult me. Screw you, Charlie. I don't need _you_ to tell me how to treat my partners. I'm not going to forget about Veev. You're the one with the track record in that department. So listen - why don't you just go to hell, and leave us to take care of our own?"

"If that's what you want." Charlie stood up and started walking for the door. It was time to leave: he'd made his request, and prolonging this conversation any further could only do harm.

"Yeah, just go." Reno shouted after him. "Go on, piss off back to Junon. We don't need you. Fuck, we don't even need the Chief. We're the goddamn _Turks_. We don't fucking need _anybody_-"

Charlie slammed the door behind him, cutting off Reno's words. A split-second later, something hit the door, and the air was filled with the sounds of glass smashing, tinkling, falling.

* * *

_**I hope you're enjoying it so far. Thanks for reading.**_


	32. Intervening Years 1 and 2

**INTERVENING YEARS 1: COLLATERAL DAMAGE  
_Tifa-Cid-Yuffie-Barret_**

**_

* * *

_**

When Tifa first sees the uniform the bar staff at Seventh Heaven are expected to wear, her heart sinks and she almost gets up and walks out of the interview there and then. She wants to rage at the manager, _Do I look like a prostitute to you? _ Tifa of Nibelheim wasn't known for mincing her words. So why is she silent now? Because she's afraid, deep down, that his answer will be _Yes._

And she needs this job. Any job. Badly.

She stays in the chair and she keeps her mouth shut and she gets the job. Well, to be honest, her breasts get the job; she knows that. And she knows she should be grateful. It's not like she has any other marketable skills, aside from her ability to kick the living daylights out of any customer who tries to put his hand up that skimpy excuse for a skirt.

How astonished they would have been, back home in Nibelheim, to see the village sweetheart, Daddy's little princess, working for her living. Still, she reminds herself that it's better to look like a whore than to be one.

_You little hypocrite,_ her conscience rebukes her_, have you forgotten that cowboy costume you used to wear? The fights you had with your father over it? You were fifteen years old! What were you thinking of?_

_ Not what_, she answers herself. _Who._

Cloud.

He is somewhere in this crowded city, somewhere on top of this huge metal mushroom hanging over her head that ought to feel claustrophobic and oppressive but instead feels like shelter, protection. She can hide here.

From him.

Because he's on the other side. Because he's her enemy now.

Because there was a time when she would have liked nothing better than for him to see her dressed like this; she would have reveled in her power to make him stare the way the bar customers stare, her power to make him say, do, promise anything.

Because she's ashamed. Of herself; of surviving; of the silence by which she survives.

.

In Rocket Town Shera walks to the edge of the meadow and lays her hand on the fence no one has bothered to remove. The locals help themselves to whatever they need, gradually stripping the viewing stands, the abandoned company housing and the workshops, growing bolder in their thefts as it becomes more and more apparent, to everyone but Cid, that Shinra has lost all interest in the space program. Though it's only been a couple of years, the place looks derelict. The metal towers are rusting. The walls of the pre-fabs are black with mold.

Shera stands at the fence and looks across the meadow at Cid, sitting in the grass with his back to her. His face is tilted skyward; he seems to be studying the rocket. She knows he's dreaming, hopeless dreams that are souring his soul. What she doesn't know is how to help him.

On the day of the rocket launch her choice had seemed a simple one: to let him die, or to die herself. He has never been able to accept that the oxygen tank was faulty. She doesn't argue with him, or try to defend herself: she understands how badly he needs someone to blame. And more and more she's starting to believe that in a way he is right to blame her, because what's happening to him now is another kind of death, painfully slow, and without glory.

.

In Wutai a skinny tomboy sits in the topmost branches of a tree, watching the workmen who are rebuilding the Sacred Pagoda. Progress is slow. Lord Godo has little money to spare. The war reparations have almost bankrupted him. Shinra donates development aid, it's true, but what it gives with one hand it takes back, with compound interest, in the other. The reactor-building program has stalled because the funds keep disappearing. Shinra blames the corrupt Wuteng, their uncivilized values, their lack of corporate mentality. Her father sighs and says that the administrators Shinra have sent him are lining their own pockets. Yuffie thinks, angrily, that she is too young to have to understand all this. Nevertheless, she understands. All the fight has gone out of her father. The responsibility is hers now.

There is a dragon of rage inside her. It is fire red, with golden claws, immensely powerful. If she ever chose to unleash it… _Well, you better watch out, Shinra, that's all! _None of the adults around her have any idea just how dangerous she can be.

She never liked the three who came first – the prissy man with the glasses, the ugly woman, and the brute. Her father told her they were planning to build a toy factory. A toy factory! Was this what the splendour of Wutai had been reduced to? Action figures and moogle plushies? But her father said the people needed jobs.

Then the new man came – the funny, handsome one with the golden hair. They called him Charlie. She could see her father knew him, though he pretended he didn't. Lying old geezer, afraid of his own shadow! Charlie was kind of old, too, but Yuffie liked him. He told her stories about the war, famous battles he'd been in. He'd fought on _their_ side! He was one of the _good guys_! She showed him all her ninja moves and he said she was awesome, which she already knew, but it was nice to hear it from somebody else for a change. She got out her collection of shurikens and he explained to her how to customize them so they would fly further and kill more cleanly. He taught her the right way to throw a grenade. The most wonderful thing of all was the small green ball he took from his pocket and held up for her to see. A beam of light shone through it, and its greenness fell onto her hands and made them tingle with something more than the warmth of the sun.

_Oh, oh, what is it? I want it! Gimme!_

He laughed and held it above her head, beyond the reach of her hands. _Come on, I'll show you. _

They went out into the woods. When he opened his hand again, it was empty, but now it was glowing with the same green light. _Watch this, _he said. He held his arm straight out in front of his face. The light shot through the air, and before Yuffie could blink, a huge crystal of ice, shimmering with rainbows, was hanging suspended above the earth. She gasped, and would have rushed forward to touch it, but he held her back. Next moment it fell, shattered, melted, leaving a hole in the ground deep enough for her to stand up in.

_Awesome! _she cried. _I want some. What is it?_

_ It's magic_, he laughed.

A disappointing answer; the kind of I'm-a-grown-up-and-you're-a-little-kid pat on the head she would not have expected from her friend Charlie.

All the same, she was on the point of announcing to him her decision that they should get married, when he went and blew the Sacred Pagoda to smithereens.

And then he left without even apologizing or saying goodbye.

Up in the tree, her stomach growls. She has gone without breakfast again this morning, because she knows that so many of her people never get enough to eat – yet even so, they dig deep into their pockets to find the money that, slowly by slowly, will rebuild this temple. They will do it all by themselves. They will owe nothing to anybody.

_But Shinra must still be punished, _she reminds herself. _ They all have to die. Everyone who's ever humiliated Wutai. Everyone who's ever betrayed me. Then they'll be sorry._

.

Elsewhere a black man, a huge man, a coal man, walks through a nameless town with a tiny girl in his arms, a pale-skinned girl who is undoubtedly not his own daughter, though she clings tightly to his neck and calls him Daddy. In place of his right hand is a metal hook. Net curtains twitch as he passes by. People wonder if they ought to say something. _Excuse me, but where did you get that child?..._

His face is ugly with anger and grief, too frightening to approach. He goes into a shop, buys bread and milk, shifts the child to his hook arm while he feels around in his pocket for some change.

_Anyone round here got any work needs doin'? _he asks the shopkeeper.

She shakes her head. What use is a man with one hand?

They are all glad to see him leave their town, though they feel sorry for the little girl.

* * *

**INTERVENING YEARS 2: TIME AND FEVERS  
_The Turks-Aerith-Rufus_**

**_

* * *

_**

Three years passed.

These were the quiet years, the years of Shinra's unopposed supremacy, when the light shone bright and steady, the world was at peace, and the Old Man jested amiably about lowering the tariffs. In the mountains north of Corel the bombed reactor was repaired and put into service, while above the ruins of the mining town an amusement palace was erected, the shining symbol of this happy, golden age.

To Tseng it felt as if time were standing still.

He had set up the account with First Midgar under the name of Peter Fielding three days after returning from Corel, and had transferred into it a large sum of his own money, using the Turks' impenetrable web of numbered accounts. Gradually, over the months that followed, he fell into the habit of logging onto this account at least once a day, checking for signs of life. Whenever funds were withdrawn, he waited twenty-four hours and then called a staff meeting. "The fugitive has been spotted in Gongaga," he told him team – or Mideel, or Icicle Inn, wherever the transaction had taken place. One of them was then chosen to go and investigate. They all knew that Veld would be long gone by the time they got there, but they played this game by the rules their Commander had taught them.

On the 24th May 2004 Veld withdrew two thousand gil from the branch in lower Junon. It was a substantial sum of money; Tseng did not expect another withdrawal for some time. However, when June and then July had come and gone with no further movement on the account, he began to feel increasingly anxious, and his double-checking grew to the point where it bordered on compulsion; he was logging in fifteen or twenty times a day.

"You've got to let it go, Boss," Knox said at last in one of the morning briefings. "Bank accounts are too easy to hack, anyway. It was only a matter of time before someone got wise. The Chief probably doesn't want to press our luck."

"He'll have figured out some other way to get money," said Reno. "Maybe he's found a job."

"Or someone's looking after him," suggested Mink.

"His daughter?" Hunter added.

"Yeah, maybe he's signed up for AVALANCHE," laughed Tys.

Knox frowned. The joke was in bad taste. But then again, Tys was still very much the rookie; to him Natalya was just a name, ancient history.

"Or maybe," said dour Cavour, "The Chief is dead. Hey, what?" he demanded as they all turned to glare at him. "We have to admit it's a possibility."

For his own peace of mind, and for the sake of the department, Tseng realized it would be better if he could bring himself to believe that Veld was gone for good. By virtue of sheer momentum the Turks were continuing to function more or less as they had when the Commander was running the show, but he knew this would not continue indefinitely. He needed to take charge, infuse them with his own energy.

He needed to stop asking himself, _what would the Commander do?_

Soon after the bank account died, Tseng gave up his visits to Nibelheim. They were a waste of time. Hojo had instructed his people not to speak to the Turks and never to let them inside the mansion – and the science department minions were far more terrified of incurring their Professor's displeasure than they were of any Turk, even the notoriously cold-blooded young Director.

What would Veld have done? Used his authority to force his way in? No, he would have said _keep your nose out of it: what goes on inside Science is none of our business. Our job is to keep it secret. _

But he would also have said, _keep your cool. Be discrete. Why push it? You've already got all the information you need. _

Tseng did not need Hojo to tell him that Zack was still alive, not as long as Aerith kept writing her letters. For the rest, he could use his own imagination, though he tried hard not to.

He had come to hate the very sight of those letters. In his office he had a drawer full of them, locked away like a dirty guilty secret. Every time she put another envelope into his hand it was as if Zack himself were reaching out to take him by the throat and shout, _I thought we were friends! Why did you leave me here? _

But how did Aerith know? This was the mystery he could not solve. Did the flowers tell her, as she sometimes laughingly said? Or the spirits of the dead? Or maybe, when he was not around, the white monster that lived in the rafters of the church opened Angeal's eyes, moved Angeal's lips, and confided its secrets to her. If Tseng had learnt one thing in his years as a Turk, it was that anything was possible.

So she knew that Zack was alive, but that seemed to be as far as her knowledge went. Though she was, naturally, a little downcast sometimes, she didn't appear to be worried about him. From this Tseng deduced that Aerith did not know (or sense? was that how it worked?) anything about the conditions in which Zack was being held. He supposed this was something else to be grateful for. She did not even seem to realize that her lover was no longer working for Shinra. But then how, Tseng wondered, did she explain Zack's prolonged absence to herself? How did she account for the fact that he had never answered a single one of her letters?

How many more reminders of his own inadequacy would he, Tseng, have to accept from her hands before her faith in Zack finally died?

These were questions he could never ask her. To ask would be to admit that he had lied. And then she would look at him with those grey eyes like someone trying to see through the reflections in a dark window on a sunny day, searching for what lay behind, and she would ask him why he had lied – even though she knew. And then the abyss they both refused to acknowledge would open itself beneath their feet.

As time went on, therefore, he saw her less and less. Often he sent his subordinates in his stead. Sometimes two or even three months passed between their meetings, though surveillance remained steady, and he read each report as soon as it came in. He told himself it was better this way, for both of them. Eventually some other young man would take Zack's place in her heart; that was the natural order of things. As for himself, he had always considered self-denial to be a virtue.

.

Towards the end of the second year after Veld's disappearance, the Turks began, one by one, to move out of the corporate housing on Warehouse Street. Rude went first. He made his request through the proper channels, filling out all the necessary paperwork, and Tseng saw no reason to refuse. The Commander had only ever intended the move to be a temporary measure, and the crisis now appeared to be over.

According to Reno, Rude had left to go shack up with a blonde croupier he'd met at the Gold Saucer's ribbon cutting ceremony. _Well, good luck to him, _thought Tseng. Sometimes a man needed something warm to go home to.

Knox was the next to leave. He told Tseng he wanted a larger apartment, with space for his boys to come and stay. He hoped Barbara might withdraw her objection to visits if she could be assured the kids would not come into contact with any of the other Turks.

Then Cavour moved out, followed by Skeeter, and Hunter, and Tys, until only Mink, Rosalind, Tseng, and Reno remained – and Reno hardly ever came home at night. Like a bird, he roosted wherever he happened to land when sleep overtook him, and seemed to have mastered the art of living in the moment. Tseng would have liked to know his secret.

_Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. _ Tseng couldn't remember where he'd heard that. Was it a line from _Loveless_, maybe? Or something the Commander had once said?

.

Three years after Veld's disappearance, a rumour went round the 48th Floor that Reno had got himself a steady girlfriend.

"Define 'steady'," said Hunter to Skeeter and Tys. The three of them were alone in the office kitchen. "Are we talking, like, two nights in a row here?"

"A month, nearly," said Tys.

"Rude's met her," added Skeeter. "He says she works on the perfume counter at Les Marroniers."

"He's having you on," Hunter stated flatly. "No woman in the entire known universe would put up with Reno for four _days_, never mind four weeks."

Tys took offense on his hero's behalf. "You want to bet?"

"Sure, if you can afford to lose. Again."

Armed with a glossy five by eight of their red-headed colleague, Tys and Skeeter set out to do a little detective work. All the girls in the Marroniers' perfume department were equally pretty: it was a toss-up which one to approach first. They settled on a slim girl with ivory skin and auburn curls, who put Skeeter in mind of a certain someone. Shouldering their way up to the counter, they thrust Reno's picture under her nose. "Do you know this renegade Turk?" they demanded. "We want him for questioning."

The girl turned pale, trembled, and burst into terrified tears, sobbing loudly while her mascara ran down her cheeks. Everyone along the counter turned to look at her – and seeing the blue suits, quickly averted their eyes and moved away.

"Hey, don't cry!" Skeeter exclaimed. "It's OK! We didn't mean it! He's a friend of ours!"

"Yeah, chill," said Tys. "We're just teasing you."

Eventually they managed to soothe her. She dried her eyes, told them her name, and, while she sold them each an expensive bottle of perfume (she really was very pretty) she recounted the story of how she and Reno had met. Elated with the success of their plan, the two young Turks returned to the office and took five hundred gil off Hunter. Then Tys rather hesitantly gave her the perfume he'd bought. "Are we even now?" he asked.

She looked at the carved crystal bottle with disdain. "It'll take more than this, bozo."

When Reno found out what they had done, the intensity of his anger took everyone by surprise. Grabbing the two miscreants by the scruffs of their necks, he dragged them into Tseng's office and shoved them onto the floor. "Now you tell the Boss what the hell you thought you were playing at."

Tseng listened to their story, and wondered, _Can it be that he really cares for this girl?_

Skeeter rubbed the tattooed nape of his neck. "Sorry, Reno." He sounded as if he meant it. "It was a stupid thing to do. Sorry, Boss."

Getting to his feet, Tys added, "But hey, dude, you know it was just a joke, right?"

Reno's eyes narrowed to slits. "It was fucking unprofessional, is what it was. Tseng, can I talk to you alone for a minute?"

The two younger Turks left the room. Reno shut the door and leaned against it. "You know what the Chief would've done, don't you? He'd have had their skins."

Silently Tseng acknowledged the truth of this. Veld would have beaten them with loving care, and they would have been better for it. But perhaps you needed to be a father to know how to do that. To judge it right. He wasn't sure he could. It would feel false – as if he were pretending to be something they all knew he was not. His hands were not trained to teach. Veld had never once asked him to physically discipline a subordinate. That was what the Commander was for.

"I'm not him," he said.

Reno took a deep breath. He let it out slowly. "No," he agreed. "But some things don't change. If you don't make them hurt for this, they'll never respect you again." His tone made it clear that Tys and Skeeter were not the only ones whose respect for their Boss was hanging on the outcome of this conversation.

"Respect me?" said Tseng. "Or fear me?"

"Same difference," Reno replied.

Up until now Tseng had managed to avoid the need for corporal punishment. He had devised other ways of making his displeasure known: polishing floors and scrubbing helicopters; a week on filing duty; gruelling workouts in the sim room; secondment to Palmer's office… Depending on the Turk in question, these various chores had proved to be highly effective as a penance for screw-ups.

But Tys and Skeeter's prank had been no screw-up. They had abused the authority of their suit: deliberately and in plain sight they had used the fear they inspired to play a childish practical joke against one of their own. What must it have looked like to those members of the public who had witnessed it? Turks bullying an innocent, pretty salesgirl… Though trivial in itself, it was the kind of thing that, if left unchecked, could turn constructive fear into dangerous hatred, and _that _was not in the company's best interests. Shinra needed its citizenry to believe that it always had their welfare at heart.

Reno was right. It had been unprofessional.

"Shit, I'll do it if you like," said Reno, misinterpreting Tseng's hesitation.

"No, it has to be me."

"I'm glad we agree on that."

"But I'll need you there."

Their eyes met. Each realized the other was remembering the same thing: the day, three years earlier, when Reno had had to step in to stop Tseng from ripping Rufus Shinra to pieces. That had been an eye-opener. Reno hadn't known it was possible for Tseng to lose control of himself so completely.

"Understood," he replied. After a short pause, he grinned in that wolfish way of his and added, "You're the boss, Mr. Director."

So Tseng gave Tys and Skeeter the beating they so richly deserved, and from that day on the atmosphere in the office improved. It was as if someone had realigned their tires, Rosalind observed - or as if the wrong note that had been throwing them off key were finally in tune once more.

_Even after all this time, _thought Tseng, _they long for the Commander to return_. _They will force me to become him; it's only a matter of time. Once, it was all I wanted. Now…._

A few days later he answered a knock on his apartment door and found Reno standing there, his suitcase in one hand, his tin-can helicopter tucked under his other arm. "You're moving out," Tseng observed. "Are you moving in with her?"

"Thought I'd give it a try, yeah."

What was the world coming to, if even Reno was thinking of settling down? When he was gone, Tseng went into his empty apartment and looked around. There were no bottles stashed in the backs of cupboards, not even a single cigarette butt swept into some forgotten corner. Strange, that someone so untidy should leave so little trace of himself behind.

A week passed. After a restless night, Tseng came early into the office. The first thing he saw was Reno, asleep on one of the sofas in the lounge area, his helicopter resting on his chest, his suitcase standing on the floor beside him.

Tseng brought him a cup of black coffee and asked, "Did she throw you out?"

He was answered by a snarky look from under sleepy eyelids. "You know what I love about you, Boss? This deep and abiding faith you have in me. No, she did not throw me out, as it happens. I left."

"What happened?"

"Nothing. Well, you know." Reno pulled himself into a sitting position. He sipped the scalding coffee, wiped his mouth. "She wasn't Cissnei."

That name had not been spoken between them for months - years. Tseng held his peace, waiting for Reno to go on and ask, _where is she, Boss? _the way he always used to.

But Reno did not ask.

And Tseng would not have been able to tell him. He did not know where Cissnei was, or what she was doing, or how to find her, or even if she was alive. The Commander had left without telling him that – as well as many other things.

He asked Reno, "Do you want to move back into Warehouse Street?"

"Nah. I never really liked it there. I'll crash with Rude for a bit, then find my own place."

"What about his girlfriend?"

"Oh – " Reno chuckled, "Yeah, that didn't work out either. She was kinda possessive, always checking up on him and calling him at work. Drove him nuts. About a month ago she got a transfer back to Gold Saucer. She offered to quit and stay in Midgar with him but he told her to take the job. Then it got a little ugly for a while. She's gone now. Hey – speak of the devil."

Tseng turned to look over his shoulder. As if summoned by the sound of his name, Rude had appeared in the hallway and was walking soundlessly towards them. The soft ceiling lights gleamed on his tawny scalp. He had just returned from Kalm, driving down through the sunrise.

"Hey Rude," Reno greeted him. "How's Veev?"

Rude shook his head. "False alarm."

There had been many such false alarms over the last three years. Tseng no longer held out much hope that Aviva would ever wake up from her mako coma, if 'wake up' was the right term. Sleepers woke up. Was she asleep? The doctors assured him that her brain functions were intact. They said they'd recorded patterns of electrical activity consistent with dreams. Well, who knew? Maybe she was better off dreaming her life away.

"Knox stayed with her, I take it?" he asked. Rude nodded.

"Good." Tseng got to his feet, automatically straightening the creases in his trousers and readjusting the set of his cuffs. "Briefing's at nine. I'm going to see Rufus now. Then I'll be in my office."

He made his way to the floor between floors. From the corridor he could see Rufus sitting with his back to the open doorway. They always left it open now, unless strangers were on their floor. The book Rufus was reading appeared to be holding all his attention. Tseng paused on the threshold, and looked around.

Over the years of his imprisonment Rufus had accumulated a fair array of personal belongings. In the area of the surveillance room that had been partitioned off for his use there was a four-poster bed, the upholstered armchair in which he was now sitting, a standard lamp, several large bookcases filled with leatherbound books, a radio, a small television, a wooden desk and chair, a chest of drawers, and an old-fashioned country style wardrobe. Two rare Wutai silk rugs, blue and gold, covered the floor, and some pricey abstract paintings in shades of charcoal hung on the walls.

From where he stood in the doorway Tseng could hear the little ginger cat purring. Rufus had been refused permission to keep Dark Nation in his prison, much to Tseng's relief; the monster had been pensioned off to one of the Shinra farms in the Grasslands, and almost at once the cat had moved in, abandoning its previous attachment to Rude in preference for Rufus' company. The Turks hardly ever saw it on the main floor any more, unless Rufus himself was brought there. Wherever Rufus was, was where the cat wanted to be. "Like it's on permanent surveillance duty," Knox had joked.

"I know that's you, Tseng," said Rufus now, an undertone of laughter in his voice. "Everyone else makes a sound. You make silence. Are you coming in?"

Tseng walked over to Rufus, resting a hand on the back of his chair. The lamplight fell on the right side of Rufus' face, emphasizing the almost transparent paleness of skin that never saw sunshine. On the ridge of his cheekbone near the corner of his eye there was a small v-shaped scar, and on his upper lip there was another, legacies of the beating he had taken at Tseng's hands. Both marks were so faint they could barely be seen. But Tseng saw them; he always saw them. He was looking at them now.

After that first taste of Rufus' blood, Tseng had never dared touch him again, afraid that if he began he would not be able to stop. His subordinates, though, had felt no such constraints. All their grief, all their anger, all their bitterness had found an outlet in hurting Rufus, and for the first months of his imprisonment they had punished him relentlessly in every way their fertile imaginations could devise. Each morning Tseng saw new bruises purpling the boy's skin, and several times, Rufus shat black blood.

Worse than any of this physical abuse, though, thought Tseng, must have been the silent treatment they meted out to him. When they weren't hurting him, the Turks had refused to acknowledge Rufus' existence. He spoke; no one answered. He moved; no one looked at him. His meals were set down in front of him, his piss and shit taken away, without a word.

Aside from an occasional reminder to them not to mark the prisoner on his face, or any place where the bruises could be seen (for his father did, very occasionally, visit him) Tseng had not intervened. The punishment had to be allowed to run its course. If he had tried to end it prematurely, the rage that drove it would have gone underground, turning its poison upon the Turks themselves. The necessity of inflicting pain on Rufus had, at least, been something that they could all agree on. In that sense, one could say he had finally become useful.

No green and clumsy rookie had ever been made to suffer the way they made Rufus Shinra suffer. And Rufus had endured his punishment as a Turk should, without making excuses, and without complaint. If he had really wanted to, he could have put a stop to his purgatory any time he chose, simply by telling his father. He was still the Vice-President; if he had insisted on being allowed to make a phone call, Tseng could not have refused. But Rufus, it seemed to him, acknowledged the justice of his punishment. Even welcomed it, perhaps?

Tseng had not yet, at that point, completely let go of his anger. All the same, he could not help feeling a little nudge of pride in Rufus - as if Veld were elbowing him in the ribs, muttering, _See? I told you there was steel in that boy, didn't I? I told you you could make something of him._

Courage, and the willingness to accept discipline, were traits every Turk admired. By slow degrees Rufus' fortitude had won, first, their grudging tolerance, and then their respect, and finally – when even Rosalind was prepared to concede that he had paid his dues and then some – their forgiveness.

Exactly which one of them had forgotten one night to replace the shackles and lock the door, Tseng did not know, nor had he tried very hard to find out. But until the day he died he would remember how he'd felt in that moment when he realized the door had been left ajar, the cold sensation of his heart standing still in his chest at the thought that Rufus had escaped, was gone. He had pushed the door wide and looked in, expecting an empty room, only to see Rufus sitting just as he was sitting now, dressed in his white silk pyjamas, his head bent over a book, the lamplight gilding his hair and shoulders.

"You're getting crow's feet," said Rufus, his voice soft and low in Tseng's ear. "Did you know that?"

Tseng drew back, just a little, and changed the subject. "What are you reading?"

Rufus turned the book over to show Tseng the gold letters on the spine. They were small; Tseng leaned in to read them: _Mako Energy and the Rise in Life Forms_. He felt Rufus' gaze moving over his face. "You look tired, Tseng."

"I didn't sleep much," he replied, cutting a long story short.

"Maybe you need a holiday."

Tseng felt the urge to smile. "Veld made me take a holiday once. I don't think I quite got the hang of it."

After talking for a little longer about nothing in particular, Tseng excused himself and walked briskly to his office, which was less than a minute away. Despite his promotion to Head of Department, he had not been given Veld's seat on the board and there had never been any suggestion that he should take over Veld's suite on the executive floor. Those rooms remained locked. Tseng had Veld's keys; he knew the President also had a set, and took it for granted that Scarlet would have arranged to have some copied as well. He had therefore gone through the rooms himself immediately after Veld's disappearance, looking for – what? Things he needed to burn? Things he needed to know? He had thought he would recognize what he was looking for when he found it, but there had been nothing useful or incriminating hidden in Veld's office. The Commander's secrets, if he had any left, were stored somewhere else. Probably inside his head…

Tseng sat at his desk. Merely looking at the pile of assignments made him feel weary. Small fry, all of them. Three years ago such fleas would have been beneath Shinra's notice, but nowadays the Old Man was increasingly unwilling to overlook even the most trivial challenges to his authority. Three years ago –

(Was it really only three years? It seemed like another life. And sometimes it seemed like yesterday; like he had fallen asleep at his desk and was dreaming this dream of dull monotony, and any moment his phone would ring and it would be the Commander, summoning him back to the real world.)

- Three years ago the Turks had had foemen worthy of their steel. Where had those glorious enemies gone? The Engetsu, defeated; AVALANCHE, dissolved; Genesis, vanished. These days the biggest enemy the Turks faced was boredom.

Tseng supposed this meant they had won.

If they had won, was he still necessary? Or had he outlived his usefulness without anybody noticing?

He was so tired. Last night, driven by the need to remind himself that his hands were good for giving something other than pain, he had changed out of his suit and slipped off to an obscure corner of Midgar - even though he knew from experience that intimacy was, like freedom, an illusion, and that the loneliness would embraced him with renewed intensity before he had time to catch his breath. Once it was over he could not get away fast enough.

_And yet_, he thought now, rather drowsily, _why_? Why did he feel his humanity as a weakness? He was only a man, after all. Still a man, as the Commander might have said. Not a monster. Not yet. Not completely.

His subordinates made jokes about his suit being his second skin. What they didn't understand was that they were right. He could undo his tie and put it in his pocket, take off the jacket and trousers and hang them over his chair. He could unbuckle his shoulder holsters and lay them on his desk. He could remove his steel-capped boots, stand them side by side under the window. He could unbutton his white shirt; he could peel off his black gloves. But he could not strip himself of Shinra.

He had been made by Shinra, and everything that was his, right down to the marrow of his bones, belonged to Shinra.

His hands, his skilled ungentle hands, so well-trained at breaking things, at extracting information – if he were one of Scarlet's machines he could unscrew them from his wrists and store them in a box in the weapons room, to be taken out when needed.

And his eyes…. If only he could erase the things that they had seen. The burning arches of Banora's apple orchards. The inferno of Nibelheim. The rotting flesh in the blue serge suits, the grey hair of Genesis' parents laid bare in the opened grave. Reno on his knees, vomiting under the glare of a mako streetlamp. Ifalna's knife pressing against Aerith's young throat. The mess he'd made of Sergeant Mehta's head. The mess he'd made of Rufus Shinra's back. Mozo's throbbing heart glimpsed through the hole Hojo's bullet had torn in his chest. The silver blur of Sephiroth's sword cleaving the dragon in two. Angeal, the abomination. And Zack's face as he delivered the killing blow.

Zack standing with his hands on his hips, laughing, throwing back his head to exclaim, _Oh man, you're partnering me with a Turk?_

Veld's real hand warm and heavy on his head. _Get your things, son, and we'll go home._

Ifalna's kiss on his brow. _Don't stay away so long next time._

Cissnei straightening his tie. _There. Now you're perfect._

Reno, his eyes turquoise slits, laughing round the cigarette in the corner of his mouth. _C'mon, Boss, see the funny side. Lighten up, man, why don't you?_

It would all have to go, all of it. His eyes came out from their sockets as easily as surveillance tapes ejected from a security camera. For some reason, he found himself labeling them and locking them in a filing cabinet. Then he took hold of the zipper at his throat and pulled it all the way down to his groin. His skin didn't come off easily; he was surprised by how much it hurt. But when he finally stepped free and kicked the empty shell aside, he felt lighter. _This must be how Veld felt_, he realized, and he laughed.

"What's so funny?" said Rufus.

"Come on," said Tseng, holding out his hand. The boy took it, and they went down in the elevator. Though the front lobby was crowded, nobody noticed them. Tseng took Rufus to the station. Rufus was very excited, jumping up and down on the seats, shouting, "I've never been in a train before!" When they arrived at the Sector 5 slums Tseng felt such a sense of urgency that he began to walk too fast; Rufus complained, and so Tseng picked him up and carried him the rest of the way to the church.

At first he thought she wasn't there, and was bitterly disappointed to have missed her. Then he heard the sound of her crying, and saw the basket sitting among the flowers in a patch of coloured light that fell through the stained glass window. He put Rufus down. The boy immediately began climbing over the pews. Tseng left him to play, and approached the basket. Gently he reached in and lifted her out. Standing face to face, he put his arms around her, holding her tight, but not possessively so, and after a moment she stopped crying and rested her head against his shoulder. He buried his face in her hair, breathing deeply.

"I know where Zack is," he told her. "Let's get him, and then we'll go find the Commander – "

His phone rang.

Like a shattered mirror the dream splintered and flew away, beyond consciousness, beyond recall.

All he knew was that he'd somehow fallen asleep at his desk, and someone was trying to call him. He reached into his pocket, felt the cold plastic of his phone, pulled it out and put it to his ear.

"Tseng?"

"Yes. What is it?"

"It's Knox here. Are you all right, Boss? You sound… very far away."

"I'm in my office. Are you calling from Kalm?"

"Yes. I've got some good news. Aviva's waking up. Just now she spoke to me. Well, spoke, anyway. Now she's gone back to sleep again, but the doctors say she's definitely coming round."

.

When Aviva opened her eyes, she found herself in a place she did not recognise. Moving was difficult, like swimming through treacle, but eventually she managed to turn her head far enough to see what was on the other side of her bed.

"Hey, sleeping beauty."

Reno's face appeared above her, his eyes twin orbs of emerald sapphire lit from within by a blue fire.

_Is this a dream? _she wondered.

"Where am I?" she asked him.

"Look how your hair's grown," he said. "And you're taller. Mako'll do that to you. You're all grown up now, Veev."

"But where am I?"

"You're with me, babe," he smirked. Aviva's heart began to thrash like a fish on a hook.

He deftly shed his suit, threw back the covers, climbed into her bed, and proceeded to do such delightful things to her that she forgot all her doubts. "I had no idea it could be like this," she gasped.

"Me neither," he grinned. "Let's get married."

Before Aviva knew it, she had a big diamond ring on her finger and she and Reno were living in Costa del Sol. He was the new manager of the Bar del Sol, but she didn't worry about that, because since marrying her he was a reformed character and a wonderful father to their delightful twins, a red-headed mischievous girl who took after her daddy, and a intense black-eyed boy who was spitting image of his mother. Old friends from their Turk days often came to visit. Charlie was a regular, always bringing the children presents. Reno wasn't as welcoming as he could have been, but Aviva forgave him, because she knew he was just a little bit jealous.

And so they continued in perfect happiness for an undefined length of time, never growing older, until one day, when Reno was washing up behind the bar, and Aviva was sitting at a table making play-dough models with the twins, the saloon door burst open and Cissnei flew in. She pointed her gun at Reno's head.

"Bastard!" she shouted. "Bitch!"

Aviva pushed her children under the table.

"You can't have him," Cissnei shrieked. "No one can have him. He's mine."

"Hey, Ciss, babe, cool it," said Reno. "You know I love only you."

Aviva's lips formed the word _No!,_ but her throat closed like a fist and she could not make a sound.

Cissnei pulled the trigger.

Bang.

Aviva sat bolt upright. Her heart was going a mile a minute. _Oh my god, _she realised, _it was a dream. Oh, thank god. It was just a dream._

_ And such a lovely dream, too. Till the end…_

_ Hang on. _

_ This isn't my room. _

_ Where am I? What is this? What's happened to me? Am I still dreaming?_

Everything was a blur. She rubbed her eyes.

Was that tobacco she could smell?

"Good morning, sleepyhead," said a voice she recognised.

Aviva strained to see, and gradually the face that belonged to the voice came into focus: lean and handsome, with a laughing, cynical mouth, pale blue intelligent eyes, and a pair of sunglasses pushed back on a head of thick reddish-gold hair –

"Charlie! It's you!"

"Yes, it's me. Take it easy, little one. You've been out of it for a while."

"What do you mean? Did I get knocked out?" Her voice resonated inside her head as if she were shouting, though she knew she wasn't. Just as in her dream, her throat kept constricting; she could barely force a whisper. "What's going on? I thought… Was Reno just here?"

"Reno was here yesterday. Everyone's been coming and going. You probably don't remember. You've been in and out of consciousness these last couple of days."

"Days?" she repeated faintly. "But what happened? Where is this place? How long have I been here?"

"Like I said. A while."

"But you look…" Aviva tailed off. Was there something wrong with her eyes, or were the lines down either side of Charlie's mouth deeper than she remembered? Was it the light in this room that made his sideboards appear more silvery than gold?

"You look older," she whispered.

All of a sudden she felt too tired to keep her eyes open one moment longer.

"Go back to sleep," he said. The tone of his voice reminded her of the Commander, and that made her think of something else she wanted to ask, only she couldn't remember what, but it didn't matter, because when the Commander got here he'd know and he'd sort everything out, just like he always did.

"Don't worry about anything," said Charlie softly. "Tseng will be here soon. Close your eyes. Just rest. That's right."

* * *

_**I hope you enjoyed reading that as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thank you for reading!**_


	33. In Cosmo Canyon

**CHAPTER 33: IN COSMO CANYON  
_In which Aviva finds that some things never change, Bugenhagen teases Reno, and Nanaki makes his first appearance_ **

**

* * *

**

_30__th__ October 2006_

Cosmo Canyon was really not Reno's kind of place. For starters, it was pretty primitive – long-drop composting pit latrines, no TV, electricity shut off at eleven pm, that kind of thing. Worse, it was almost impossible to find anyone with whom to hold a rational conversation. The place seemed to be populated entirely by poseurs, hippies, and vegetarians, who were either on some sort of permanent mass trip or else taking the piss on a cosmic scale. He suspected the latter. And it was usually so bloody quiet, except for the whirr of their wind generators and that faint drumming sound that went on constantly in the background, like a headache that just wouldn't go away.

Tonight, though, the village on the red bluffs had come alive. Due to the upcoming festival (celebration of the galactic loveforce renewal, or some such bollocks) the place was crammed to the rafters with tourists. Thank god, then, for the magic of the Shinra expense account gold card; despite being overbooked, the Shildra Inn had had no trouble finding a couple of single rooms for their two unexpected guests from Midgar. Looking out his window, Reno could see what looked like a party beginning to form around the Candle down below. He might check it out later, as long as they weren't playing folk music.

Having washed off the dust from his journey under the (cold) shower, he dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt, shrugged into his shoulder holsters, put on his leather jacket, and held it open by the lapel while he fitted his EMR through the loops sewn into its lining. Then he coiled his ponytail under his black wooly hat, set the goggles on top, and went down the corridor to knock on his partner's door. "Hey, Veev, let's go eat." She came out wearing navy leggings, black shorts, and a boy's tartan shirt tied over a t-shirt printed with the image of a tonberry. Half a dozen cheap white metal bracelets circled her wrists; anyone hearing her knives rattle would take the sound for the jingling of her bangles.

To the casual eye, they were just two more tourists. Only the crepe-soled boots they wore gave any hint that they had come to Cosmo Canyon on business.

.

_A little later, in the Starlit Bar…._

"Like old times, this," Reno said to Aviva between mouthfuls. "Remember that buffet breakfast at the BellaVista in Junon?"

"I remember making a pig of myself."

"Yeah," Reno chuckled. "I did wonder how someone so tiny could put away so many pancakes."

"I was _starving_. Gosh…. Six years ago," she marveled. "It doesn't seem possible."

"It's good to see you back in harness again. I kind of missed you, you know."

Aviva felt the blood rush to her cheeks. _Oh, wonderful_, she thought. _I've been shot and sliced and stabbed and half-drowned in mako; I've been blown up, broken down and nearly killed more times than I can count, and I __still__ blush every time he says something nice to me. Some hard nut I am. Come on, girl, don't sit here tongue-tied; say __something__…._

"I was s-surprised Mr Tseng didn't assign Hunter to this mission," she replied, stumbling sightly over her words. "It's right up her street. But I guess he wanted to ease me back in gently."

Her body had emerged from its coma in surprisingly good shape: the physios in the nursing home had made sure of that. Aviva had been a little disappointed to find that her long submersion in the mako pool had done nothing to enhance her physical attributes; she was unable to punch through walls, grab bullets out of the air, or leap tall buildings in a single bound, as she had half-hoped would be the case. Nor had she grown a single inch. Mr Tseng had said he thought the materia he'd found in her pocket must have protected her from any permanent effects, good _or _bad, of the mako poisoning. He'd shown it to her; it was beautiful, and she wished she could have told him what it was, or at least how it had got into her pocket in the first place. But she remembered nothing.

The last thing she could recall with any clarity was standing in the doorway of the Corel reactor, staring over at the others on the far side of the bridge and thinking that she'd have to hurry to catch up. Next thing she knew, she was lying in a hospital bed in Kalm and Mr Tseng was sitting beside her trying to explain how _three years_ of her life had gone by in the blink of an eye. One moment she was eighteen; the next, she was twenty-one.

She had woken up into a mirror world, a world where everything was turned back to front – where Mr Tseng was the Commander, and the real Commander had become a fugitive whom they'd been ordered to shoot on sight; where Vice-President Rufus Shinra, whom she _clearly_ remembered standing in the concrete gloom of the Corel Reactor with his arms folded, shouting up to Fuhito _I've gathered the Turks here for you. Now kill them! Kill them all!, _had somehow been magically and instantaneously forgiven, had taken up residence in their surveillance room (four poster bed, swanky carpets, the lot), and was being treated by everyone like some kind of cross between an honoured guest and a clever recruit.

In this topsy-turvy world, it should have come as no surprise to her to learn that the leader of AVALANCHE was Commander Veld's daughter. None of it made any _sense_. But everyone else was acting like it made perfect sense.

They had all gone on without her. They were further away than ever. Once again, she had fallen behind, and was having to limp as fast as she could to avoid losing sight of them completely.

"If we were planning to stuff this kitty and put it in a trophy case, then yeah, maybe Honey'd be the one for the job," Reno laughed. "But our orders are to bring it back alive."

"Reno, do you remember the last time…." Aviva hesitated, not sure quite how she wanted to phrase her question. "Remember that week when Director Heidegger was in charge of us? What you said? 'He'll having us rescuing old ladies' cats till the day we die.' Remember?"

"This creature we're after is no pussy. Tseng says Hojo says it's almost twice the size of a cuahl."

"Still….. It's a far cry from Junon, isn't it? Sometimes I feel as if I'm never going to get my head around how much everything's changed…."

Reno jabbed his loaded fork at her. "I told you that day in Junon not to get the wrong idea. AVALANCHE is finished. Things are back to normal now. This food's not bad, is it? I always say, Cosmo Canyon's got three things going for it: decent food, great beer, and the best weed this side of the planet."

Just then someone standing in the crowd jostled Aviva from behind, causing her to drop her fork on the floor and spill her beer over her plate. She made a small, annoyed sound, and the man responsible turned round to say, "Oh, I'm sorry – "

He met Reno's stare, and the apology died on his lips.

"Hey," said Reno. "Be careful, huh?"

The man nodded, already backing away.

Aviva bent to pick up her fork. Reno went on eating.

It suddenly occurred to her how odd it must look that the two of them had a table to themselves, when the bar was so jam-packed there was barely room to turn around. She and Reno weren't wearing their suits. So why were they being given a wide berth? It might, of course, have had something to do with the way Reno had stretched himself out along the entire length of a bench designed to seat five people. But no one had asked him to move.

_We're intimidating_, she remembered, and then mentally amended the thought to read _He__ is intimidating. Even if they don't know we're Turks, they can see he's dangerous. It's in his eyes - _

All evening she had been aware of the surreptitious glances being cast their way. Each time it happened, Reno's eyes flicked sideways, looking for signs of danger, noting, evaluating and dismissing all without breaking the flow of his conversation. It seemed to Aviva that his constant monitoring of the room took place at some level beyond conscious thought, though sheer force of habit. Or maybe it came from somewhere even deeper. Maybe it was an instinct he'd been born with.

_Is it in my eyes too?_ she wondered.

"Done," he said, pushing his plate away. "You finished, Veev? Let's go see what's happening at the Candle."

It was cooler outside, under the night sky. The waxing moon was a day away from being full. Reno halted to scan the crowd and Aviva stopped beside him. All around them, men and women swayed in rhythm to the drumbeats. Over the heads of the crowd Aviva saw the spark-filled smoke rising from the bonfire. Closer to the Candle people were dancing vigorously. Their dark silhouettes jumped up and down, fists punching the air.

Reno was rocking on the balls of his feet. She knew what he was looking for now, and it wasn't danger. Moment by moment the crowd grew thicker, pushing the two of them closer together. Her head became wedged against his armpit; she could practically taste the pheromones in the heat coming off his body. The smell of him was wonderful: fresh laundered cotton, the ozone tang of electricity and the sharp pepperiness of gunpowder, an underlying note of nicotine, all mingled with the subtle musk of his own flesh. To be this close to him stirred and confused her; her chest felt tight, her breath was short, and yet she longed to be even closer: she ached to throw her arms around his skinny, supple waist and hug him tight, to press her face into his shirt, fill her senses with the scent of his skin.

The intensity of this longing frightened her. All it would take would be one wrong step….

_This is as far as I go_, she decided.

She tugged on his sleeve. He bent his head. "I'm kind of tired," she lied. "I don't think I'm up for this. Do you mind?"

"We'll both go in," he offered – which was nice of him, when she could see that he would really rather have his fun. "No, you stay," she replied. "I'll be fine. I'm just not in the mood."

'The Boss told me to keep an eye on you, Veev."

Oh – so it was orders. She'd have to push him away a bit harder, then. "Look, I'm fine, OK?" she said, doing her best to sound snappy and annoyed. "I don't need a nursemaid and I hate people fussing over me. _And_ I don't want to have to listen to _you_ tomorrow griping at me about what a buzz kill I am. Go have fun, and don't worry about me. I'm just going to rest in my room."

She could tell he wasn't completely buying it. His eyes narrowed, and he looked hard into her face as if trying to work out what was really going on in there. Whatever he saw, or thought he saw, it evidently passed muster, because he nodded and said, "All right, Veev. Just take care of yourself. Busy day tomorrow. You've got your phone, right? You need me, you call me."

He pushed off into the crowd, and she, too, turned around and took a few steps before she turned back again to watch him. Already he was almost out of sight, easing himself between bodies with the same loose-limbed, insinuating grace that had been sauntering in and out of her wildest dreams for six years now.

So much had changed while she was sleeping. _Why_ did her feelings for Reno have to be the _one thing_ that had stayed the same? _Why_ couldn't her heart have changed too? Why was her luck such _crap_? All he'd ever done was show her a little kindness, a little friendliness, and straight away her hungry heart had latched on to him like it was some kind of some parasite – like a _leech,_ afraid that it would die if it let go. But it _needed_ to let go. Most girls grew out of their teenage crushes. What was wrong with her? Why couldn't she just _grow up_, the way he kept telling her to? _Grow up_ and _wake up_ and _catch up_ to reality….

She could no longer see him anywhere. The crowd had swallowed him.

So now what? Go back to her hotel room, hide her head under a pillow, and cry herself to sleep?

Or party?

It was a no-brainer. A Turk had her pride, after all - and Aviva did love to dance. With her shoulders back and her chin up, she about-faced and plunged into the rhythm of the night, taking the opposite direction from the one in which he had gone.

.

Reno woke her the next morning at seven. He was in an exuberant mood, full of energy. "Meet me for breakfast in ten minutes. Our appointment with Bugenhagen's at eight."

"Suits?"

"Civvies. And no weapons. The old guy hates 'em, and I think he can smell 'em or something. Makes him flakier than usual. Tseng wants us to try to get some sense out of him for a change."

At breakfast he put away three platefuls of scrambled eggs on toast with lashings of ketchup, washed down with a big mug of strong, sweet black coffee. Watching him eat robbed Aviva of her own appetite. Last night's dancing had taken its toll. Her bad leg ached. After breakfast, when he went bounding up the stairs to the Observatory, she lagged behind.

"Keep up, sickie!" he called over his shoulder.

"Stop showing off."

But Reno wore his moods as lightly as he wore his suit, and could change in and out of them with equal ease. She followed him up the final ladder; he reached down to give her a helping hand, and when he pulled her into the sunlight on the top of the butte she saw that he had put on his business face.

"I don't like this old guy, and I don't trust him," he told her. "I'm sure he's been keeping information from us. And he winds us up deliberately. He thinks he's untouchable." Reno knocked on the door of the observatory, adding as he did so, "Let me do the talking, Veev. You watch him. Watch his face. See if you think he's telling the truth."

The door opened, and Bugenhagen appeared, bobbing up and down like a novelty balloon on a string. "Good morning," he said. Smiling benignly behind his long white beard, he took a few moments to look the two of them over. "Do I know you? You seem slightly familiar."

"We're from Shinra," said Reno.

"Ah. Have you come to sell me something?"

"We have an appointment. We need to ask you a few questions. We're from the Department of Administrative Research."

Bugenhagen chuckled owlishly. "Ah yes, now I remember. Turks, aren't you? I thought I recognised you. Aren't you hot in that hat, Reno? And – Aviva, isn't it? How are you, my dear? Fully recovered, I hope?"

"Yes, thank you, sir."

"Tseng keeping you busy?"

"The fun just never stops," said Reno.

"Hoo, hoo. That's good. You know what they say: the devil finds work for idle hands. Well, come on in." Leading the way on his flotation device, he ushered them into his cramped kitchen-cum-sitting-room and invited them to sit down at his table.

Aviva couldn't help being flattered that Bugenhagen had remembered her name. They had only met once before, nearly five years ago, when she'd come here with Rude on a mission to gather intelligence on AVALANCHE. Rude had told her ahead of time that the thing the old guy was riding on wasn't really a balloon, but more like a child's toy hopper, inflated with helium, its seat custom molded to the shape of his lower back. His paralysed legs were strapped inside, covered up by his long blue robes so that he appeared to have no legs at all. He moved the device using two tiny compressed air jets operated by a remote control he kept hidden in his sleeve.

Knowing all this, she hadn't found it difficult to believe that once upon a time, a century ago, he had been one of the fledgling Shinra Corporation's weapon design specialists, renowned for his work on the now-obsolete air-propelled grenade. What _was_ hard to believe was his age. With his chubby cheeks, his pink bald head, and his eyes that seemed at once old and wise, yet brand-new and unspoiled, he put her in mind of a big, bearded baby.

"Some refreshments?" he asked them. "Something to drink, perhaps? I'm not sure what there is. It's a little early in the day for hard liquor, but I could make you some tea. Or would you like a glass of water? I must say, it's very kind of you to drop by. Young people so rarely have time to spare for the old folks these days."

Reno drummed his fingers on the tabletop. "Look, we've got a lot to do today, so how about you drop the doddery granddad act and we can cut to the chase?"

Bugenhagen stopped his bobbing. "You've come to ask about Veld, I take it?"

Reno breathed out slowly through clenched teeth, a faint hissing sound. "So you've seen him. When?"

"He passed through here about a month ago, asking about his daughter."

"And it didn't occur to you to contact us?"

"Hoo, hoo. That's a loaded question. But taking everything into consideration, I felt that you would probably prefer to come to me. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the official line is that Veld is dead, isn't it? Killed in the line of duty at the Corel explosion. He is, one might say, _safer_ dead. Isn't he?"

"I'm not here to discuss company policy," said Reno. "Just tell me why he came here and what he wanted."

"Young man, your manners leave something to be desired." Bugenhagen had begun to bob up and down again. Aviva could not watch him for long: the movement made her feel seasick. She thought he probably knew this.

"Could you stop that? Please," said Reno.

The sage brought himself down to earth with a little sigh. "Very well, then. To be brief, Veld wanted my advice about his daughter, Felicia. Apparently she has a summons materia embedded in her hand. It's faulty – or incomplete, I'm not sure which. And it's making her ill."

"Was she with him?" asked Reno. "Has he found her?"

"No. My understanding is that she is still with Fuhito."

"So how does the Chief know what's wrong with her?"

"Shears told him. They've been travelling together for the last three years, searching for Felicia."

"Shears!" cried Aviva. A memory flickered into life. "He – " But before she could say any more, the bright picture in her mind went out like a match-flame in the breeze. She rubbed her eyes. "No – sorry, I've lost it…."

Reno said, "How can a summons be faulty? I've never heard of that before. What kind of summons is it?"

"Hoo, hoo, you're asking all the right questions today. The answer is, a very unusual one. Quite unique. Summons, as you know, are the temporary corporeal personifications of elementary energies or planetary functions that – "

"Yeah, yeah, we know what summons are. Just tell us what's so special about this one."

Aviva could have sworn she saw Bugenhagen's black eyes twinkle as he said, "It's the only summons I know of capable of returning all forms of life to the planet simultaneously."

"Right," said Reno slowly. "You mean, destroy all life on earth?"

He and Aviva exchanged glances. His look said, _see how this guy's jerking us around? _ The quick smile he gave her was strained; he was fast running out of patience. Turning back to Bugenhagen, he asked, "So what kind of elemental would that be, then? Fire? Water?"

"Well, if you insist on categorizing it, I suppose you would have to call it a kind of Cure."

"Uh-huh? So it's a Cure materia, but it's making the Commander's daughter sick?"

"Yes. Didn't I explain that? As I said, the materia lacks integrity, and so in order to sustain itself it has to feed on her energy. You see, each of us is, in our own way, a small universe – a planet in miniature, so to speak. We each have a personal lifestream that courses inside us and sustains us. The materia in Felicia's hand is drawing its energy from her lifestream. To use an analogy you might understand, it's treating her as its own personal mako-powered battery. Eventually it will drain her, and then there'll be nothing left of her but a husk that will dissolve into powder and blow away on the wind."

Aviva shivered, as if the wind were blowing through her own dry bones.

Reno was unmoved. "So - If I'm understanding you correctly, what you're saying is that the Commander told you that Shears told him that Fuhito put into Elfe's hand a broken summons materia that's basically useless for anything except sucking the life out of her. There's just one problem with that scenario. Why would anyone do such a dumbass pointless thing?"

In the beat of silence before Bugenhagen's reply, another memory came to Aviva, this time of sunset on the docks at Junon. A blood-red radiance filled the air, turning Sephiroth's silver hair to gold, his steel sword to bronze. Elfe brought up her own sword to meet and hold his blow; the ringing of blade against blade sent shock waves through the concrete under Aviva's feet -

"I know!" she cried out loud. "To make her stronger. Like SOLDIER."

The sage nodded, beaming approval; for a moment she felt absurdly pleased with her own cleverness. But Reno was scowling at her. _Shut up_, said his look. _I'm doing the talking._

To Bugenhagen he said, "Elfe's not strong any more. According to you, she's dying. So why is Fuhito hanging on to her?"

"Hoo, hoo, another good question. My guess is that he still hopes to make use of the materia in some way."

"You guess?" Reno's voice had dropped, become quiet, smooth, bland. "I think you know. Where is he?"

Bugenhagen was not to be so easily blindsided. Folding his hands in his sleeves, he answered serenely, "I don't know."

"When did you last see him?"

"Not for many years now. At least a dozen. As I told you a while back, we didn't part on the best of terms. I don't approve of his methods."

"If he came here or contacted you, you'd inform us." From Reno's tone, his words could have been interpreted as a question, a statement of fact, an order, or all three.

The old man gave a soft hoot. "I don't think much of your methods, either. But you've never found me uncooperative, have you?"

Aviva watched Reno think about this. He leaned back, once more tapping his fingers on the splintery tabletop. She could tell he was itching for a smoke.

He said, "How exactly does the Commander think he's going to save Elfe?"

"I cannot tell you the answer to that, since I myself was unable to help him."

"Our orders are to find him. Which way did he go when he left this place?"

"Hoo, hoo. I didn't watch to see which road he took. If you want to find him, find his daughter. That's my advice."

_We've come full circle_, thought Aviva. Reno seemed to think so, too. He pushed back his stool and got to his feet. Evidently the interview was over. Aviva also stood up. Bugenhagen smiled benevolently at her. Reno took a card from his pocket and held it out to the floating sage. "This is Tseng's number. Don't lose it. If you hear anything about Fuhito, call him. Immediately. You won't regret it."

Failure to call, his tone implied, would lead to serious regrets.

And though there was something about threatening this sick old man that didn't quite sit right with Aviva, she nevertheless reflected, firstly, that you didn't get to be a hundred and thirty years old without knowing how to take care of yourself; secondly, that as long as Fuhito remained alive the danger he posed could not be overstated - and thirdly, that she wished she could exude casual menace as effortlessly as Reno did. People might take her more seriously then.

Bugenhagen followed them out into the sunshine. A strong wind blew across the top of the butte, fluttering his robes and tossing his beard over his shoulder. "I hope you're not planning to leave us immediately," he said by way of farewell. "Now that you're here, you should stay for the Festival. It only comes round every fifty years. For people like you, it's a once in a lifetime experience."

Aviva was already climbing down the ladder. She heard Reno say, "Yeah, we might stick around for it," and saw his boot come down onto the rung above her. Then she heard Bugenhagen's voice asking, "Oh, by the way, whatever happened to that other pretty colleague of yours, the one with the golden eyes? She was here, undercover, for quite a few months some years back, and then she vanished and I never heard from her again. I forget her name. What was it? Sadie? Cindy?"

"Cissnei." Perhaps it was the narrowness of the space that made Reno's voice sound hollow. But Aviva didn't think so. "Yeah. She's dead. Too bad, huh? Come on, Veev," he snapped, "Let's move it."

She jumped down and stood back, on legs that were suddenly shaky, to let him land.

Was it true? Was the Evil One dead? Was that something else that had happened while she was sleeping, and nobody had remembered to tell her?

When she got back to Midgar she'd ask Rude, she decided.

.

_Noon. Stakeout._

Aviva and Reno had taken up position on the top of a low ridge commanding a three hundred and sixty degree view of the Canyon. Armed now, and dressed in their suits, they sat back to back in the shadow of an overhanging rock. Each had a pair of binoculars. Reno was scanning the area to the north, Aviva the south.

She broke the silence. "Reno?"

"Mmm?"

"Why are we so sure the target's going to come this way?"

"We're not. But intel says it's got to show up for the festival. So if we miss it this afternoon, we'll have to fall back on Plan B and capture it in the village this evening."

"I don't like the sound of that," she said. "There's too many people. It might cause trouble."

"You said it. So keep your eyes peeled."

"Why does the Professor want this creature, anyway?"

"Dunno. Endangered species, Tseng said."

"But it can talk?"

"That's what the spec sheet says."

"So – what, are we going to persuade it to come with us?"

Reno sighed. "It's just an animal, Veev. Stun it, crate it, ship it, job done."

"But what do you think Hojo's going to _do_ with it?"

"Not our business."

A wind blew down the canyon, swirling dust devils along the dry river bed. Orange and purple clouds, heavy with sand, moved through the hot gunmetal sky, their shadows flowing across the canyon floor and up the striped bluffs. The air the Turks breathed was rich with iron particles and tasted, faintly, of blood. The light was strange – like evening, although it was midday.

A rock was digging into Aviva's buttocks. She repositioned herself, and said, "I hope it isn't really intelligent. Whatever the Professor's got in mind, it can't be good. Don't you think? God, I hate having to do the Science Department's dirty work for them."

"Yeah, well, when you signed on the dotted line nobody promised you'd like everything you had to do, did they? A mission's a mission. You can't pick and choose."

"I know," Aviva sighed.

"Oh, and partner, another thing – "

"Yes?"

"Next time we interrogate a suspect, don't answer for him, OK? When I say keep your mouth shut and listen, that's what I want you to do."

"Yes. Sorry."

"And the next time we go to a party, don't ditch me with some lameass excuse about being too tired and then go off dancing till three o'clock in the morning."

She was glad to be sitting with her back to him: he couldn't see that her face had flushed beetroot red. It had never crossed her mind he might notice. She'd assumed he would be too busy with other things.

"I can take a hint, you know," he went on. "But you've got to be straight with me. That's kind of fundamental. When I got back last night and you weren't there, I was worried. I didn't know where you were. I lay awake for nearly an hour till I heard you come in. Made me feel like your fucking _Mum_ or something_._"

"Sorry."

"Yeah, well – just don't let it happen again, is all."

Briefly she considered defending herself. _Hey, partner, listen – I cleared off so as not to cramp __your__ style._ But who knew what that might lead to? Reno was too good at worming the truth out of people. Aviva decided she had better change the subject.

"It's wonderful news about the Chief, isn't it?" she said quickly.

"What is?"

"Well…. That he's still alive. I'm so relieved. Aren't you?"

"I never doubted it for a minute. I just hope we don't run into him."

"Oh, but Reno, don't you want to see him again?"

"No."

"But why?"

"I don't want to have to be the one who kills him."

Aviva stiffened. "You'd – do that?"

"Orders is orders. And this one comes from the top."

"Yes… but… the _Chief, _Reno – "

"Ever since I was fifteen years old, the one thing the Chief drilled into my skull was _obey your orders_. If I ran into him now and _didn't_ try to kill him, I think he'd be so disappointed in me he'd skin me alive."

Aviva wasn't sure how to take this. "Are you joking?" she asked.

"I - Hey, look there."

A cloud of dust moving along the valley floor had caught his eye. Aviva got up on her knees and swiveled round to look. Reno raised the binoculars, but after a moment put them down again. "Sahagin. Ugh," he said. She returned to her original position, and again they sat back to back, leaning very slightly into one another.

Aviva was debating with herself whether to revive the subject of the Chief, when suddenly she felt every muscle in Reno's body tense. "Veev," he whispered, "Turn around very slowly. Eyes left. Ten o'clock. Tell me what you see."

At first Aviva could see nothing. The shadows of the clouds were confusing the landscape with their moving patterns of light and shade. She adjusted her binocular's focus, and four tiny puffs of dust appeared in the distance. They were moving at speed, coming rapidly closer. Within seconds she could make out four figures in black, human figures, or human-like. On their heads something shiny, possibly helmets or visors, flashed in the sunlight.

"Not - Ravens?" she breathed.

He nodded.

Fear knotted her throat. She struggled to speak. "But – I thought – you said – AVALANCHE was finished – "

"Guess you must be our lucky charm."

She turned to stare at him, convinced that he was being sarcastic. No – he was teasing her, but he also meant it. She could see it in his eyes,: there was a light in them, an exuberance, like the gleam she used to see there all the time back in the days, as she had once expressed it to herself, when he was happy.

"I _knew_ that old pothead was screwing with us," he said, and there was as much glee as anger in his voice. "Fuhito's here somewhere, Veev. I can almost _smell_ the fucker. Check your side, see if there's any more."

She did. There were. "Three."

Reno jumped to his feet. "Looks to me like they're heading for the village. Can't let that happen. We'll have to stop them here. You got any Firaga?"

Wordlessly, she nodded.

"Good. What you have to do is shoot 'em or knife 'em first, then fry them when they're down with a big ball of flame. That should stop them regenerating. Stay under cover as much as you can and keep your back to the canyon wall. We'll meet up there – " He pointed to a windswept pine clinging to the top of the next ridge.

"Reno – "

He was shifting from foot to foot, aching to run, to fight.

_Don't get killed, please, please don't get killed. _

" - Be careful," she said.

"I'm always careful, partner," he grinned. "Now, let's go get 'em."

.

As soon as Reno attacked the rearmost Raven, he realized how much they had grown in strength since their last encounter. Against all four of them combined he wouldn't have stood a chance. But whatever they had been sent to the Canyon to hunt, it obviously wasn't Turks, and fortunately for him they were single-minded to the point of imbecility. Ignoring the threat he posed, the other three continued to move relentlessly westward. Their pace did not falter, and they did not turn back even when he killed their pack-mate. Thus he was able to pick them off one by one, and in the space of just over half an hour they were all accounted for.

Job done, Reno ran up the ridge to the stunted pine he'd pointed out to Aviva earlier. Shading his eyes with his hand, he scanned the canyon for her. One of her Ravens was still going strong, heading north-west. Of Aviva there was no sign.

Damn. He should have known it was too soon. She hadn't been ready for this. And now he had to make a choice: deal with the last Raven, or find his partner.

Why was he hesitating? They all knew the rules. _Complete the mission no matter - _

No – wait – there she was, thank god. Those springs in her heels hadn't gone rusty after all. Somehow she'd managed to get ahead of the last Raven – _it_ seemed to be chasing _her_ now. Unless both of them were chasing something else….

He pulled out his binoculars and took a long look. What he saw made him grin. "Good girl," he murmured. Putting the binoculars back in his pocket, he grasped his rod more firmly in his left hand, and charged off down the hillside after them.

.

Five miles up the canyon he ran them to earth in the steep dead-end of a rocky gully. A battle had just ended. The smoking remains of two more Ravens lay spreadeagled on the ground. Aviva, caked with blood and dust, sat leaning against a boulder. Lying beside her, resting its heavy head on her thigh, was The Creature.

It was just as big as Tseng had said it would be, bigger than Aviva, and it was red, red like the earth of the canyon, with a bristling, black-tipped mane. Its lips too were black, rimmed with the white foam of animal sweat. It must have fought hard: its flanks were heaving. Blood seeped through its fur from a deep wound in its neck. Aviva was trying to improvise a bandage out of a strip torn from her shirt, mumuring soothingly to The Creature while she did so.

"Nice work, Veev," Reno saluted her. "Mission accomplished. I took care of that other one for you, by the way."

At the sound of his voice The Creature scrambled to its feet, hackles raised. Despite its bulk, and the impressive arsenal of its white fangs, it seemed to Reno to be more frightened than fearsome… And young, too, with clumsy paws too big for its body.

The spec sheet had said it was a wild animal, but that obviously wasn't true. Reno could see from the way it was groomed that it must be somebody's pet. Human hands had pierced those ears, had plaited that mane and trimmed the coarse ruff with feathers and brooches. Down each of its furry cheeks ran stripes of war paint, and it wore silver arm-grieves on its legs.

"Don't be scared," Aviva reassured it, laying her small hand on its shoulder. "He means he killed the other Raven. He's with me."

"He smells bad," it replied.

And although Reno had been warned that it could speak, the shock of actually hearing a deep, male, _human_ voice coming out of that animal's mouth was so great that he dropped his mag-rod and stood rooted to the spot, staring.

"It's the cigarettes. And the booze," Aviva explained.

"Why do humans like to poison themselves? I do not understand it. Your lives are so short already."

"Fucking hell," breathed Reno. "Now I've seen everything."

Aviva stooped to pick up the rod. "His name's Nanaki," she said, putting the weapon back into Reno's hand. "The Ravens were after him too. He doesn't know why. Do you?" she added, addressing The Creature.

"I have never seen them before," it replied. "What are they? I know they're not Gi."

Reno was finding it wasn't quite as easy to hold a conversation with an animal as he had imagined. He kept choking on the sheer weirdness of it. To Aviva he said, "Looks like it put up quite a fight."

"He did. He was so brave." She was talking to Reno, but she was beaming smiles at The Creature. "I'd have been a goner without him. And he says he's never fought for real before!"

"I couldn't let them hurt Deneh," it said.

Reno looked a question at Aviva. She explained, "There was another one. His friend."

"I thought he was supposed to be the only one."

"She – Deneh - was the one the Ravens were chasing. He came to save her, and I followed him."

Reno turned his eyes back to The Creature. It bore his gaze patiently, flicking an ear from time to time. Finally, Reno addressed it directly. "So where's she now, your friend?"

"She escaped," it replied, "While Aviva and I held them off. If you are coming to the festival, you'll see her this evening. She is my partner in the holy ritual."

"Oh, I get it," said Reno. "She's your mate."

The flame on The Creature's tail flared. "She is _not_," it protested, rubbing its face against its foreleg in a way that, were it human, would have suggested embarrassed adolescent self-consciousness. "We're just friends."

"Uh-huh? So – what are you, anyway? Cat? Dog? Some kind of monster?"

The Creature lifted its head and gave him a proud look. "My people are the protectors of this canyon. It is our sacred trust."

"Your _people_? How many of you are there?"

"Deneh and I are all that remain." It turned to speak to Aviva. "Thank you for helping me save her. Without the two of us, the ceremony tonight cannot take place. I am eternally in your debt."

Before Aviva could reply, Reno cut in smoothly with, "Not so fast there, Whiskers. I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but your little fertility rite has just been cancelled. You're coming to Midgar with us."

The Creature's ears went back, and its tail stiffened. It threw a look of pained astonishment at Aviva.

"Reno! No!" she cried.

"Don't you start." He took a Manipulate materia from his pocket. To The Creature he said, "You seem intelligent, so listen up. Come along with us quietly, and I won't have to use this."

"But Reno – can't we wait at least until tomorrow? You heard what Nanaki said. Without him, they can't hold the ceremony. Come on, Reno, _please_ – "

"Oh, no, no, no, " he exclaimed. "You're not doing this to me again. No. Let's just finish the fucking job and go home before anything else happens – "

"But Reno, what about all those people? All those tourists? From all over the planet? What will they think when he doesn't show up? When the ceremony has to be cancelled? They've been waiting fifty years. They'll be furious! But if we let him play his part tonight, we can take him tomorrow without a fuss. I mean, it's not as if he's going to run away."

"I dunno, Veev – "

"And what if they found out that Shinra was responsible for ruining the ceremony? How would that make the company look?"

He was forced to admit she had a point. "All right. Fine. Have it your way. But if this all goes pear-shaped it's your neck on the block, OK? And anyway – " he shoved the materia back into his pocket – "To be honest, I'm kinda interested to take a look at this mating ritual myself."

"It's not a mating ritual," growled The Creature deep in its throat.

"Whatever. Anyway, listen, Whiskers – "

"My name is Nanaki."

"Right. So listen, Nanaki, you see what my partner did to these Ravens here? That's nothing. You haven't even _begun_ to see what we're capable of. So don't start thinking about double-crossing us. We let you stay for the ceremony, you promise to come with us to Midgar tomorrow. Deal?"

Nanaki's fur was raised, but his tail was half-tucked between his legs; he seemed torn between fear and defiance. He said, "I can promise nothing. We must speak to Grandfather. If he agrees, then I will go with you."

"What the fuck?" Reno's face twisted. "You've got a _grandfather_ now?"

"You may know him as Bugenhagen."

Reno stared. Then he threw back his head and let out a whoop of laughter. "No shit? Man, I see now why Hojo's so interested in you. You got stuff going on in this canyon that would make him _drool. _ All right, then - let's go see the old bullshitter. I want to have a word with him anyway."

.

Bugenhagen was overjoyed to see Nanaki alive. He kissed the animal on the forehead and ran his hands down all four legs, tutting over each cut and bruise. "Oh, you fought bravely, child. Bravely! Well done. And Deneh is safe." He looked up at the two Turks. "You saved them. And you preserved the ritual. You can't know what this means, to all of us. I thank you. The planet thanks you."

"OK, _Grandad_, don't get carried away," said Reno. He was in an expansive mood now, which sprang, Aviva decided, from knowing he was in complete control of the situation. "You owe us, so let's start talking. Fuhito was here, wasn't he?"

"He came soon after you left."

"Was he following us? Did he know we were in the Canyon?"

Bugenhagen stroked his beard. "He didn't mention you. No, I think he's following Veld. He wants what Veld wants: the support materia for the summons in Felicia's hand. He thought I might know where to find them."

"And do you?"

"It stands to reason that they exist, but as to where they might be found…. Your guess is as good as mine."

"But if he finds them, he could destroy the whole world!" Aviva exclaimed.

"Yeah, he's not afraid to think big, is he?" said Reno.

"We have to stop him!"

"You should probably try," Bugenhagen agreed. "Although it hardly matters in the long run. Whichever one of you prevails, Shinra or AVALANCHE, the end will be the same. When you reach my age you'll realize just how very pointless all this struggling is. We are all nothing more than a temporary arrangement of molecules animated by a little borrowed energy, and for anything new to be created, something old must give way. Death is part of the process. Everything has a limit to its time in this world, even companies. Even this Planet. And if its time has come, then there is nothing you or I can do to prevent it."

Aviva looked as if she would have liked to tell him he was wrong. Reno, having dealt with Bugenhagen many times before, knew better than to waste his time trying. "You love this doomsday shit, don't you?" he said, tapping his open palm with the end of his rod. "Me, I'm more interested in hearing what Fuhito wanted with Flame-Tail here."

Nanaki bared his teeth. Bugenhagen laid a steadying hand on his mane, and said, "To blackmail me. He thought that if he threatened to stop the ceremony, I would tell him where the materia were and how to make the summons work."

"Which you couldn't, because you didn't know, right?"

"Hoo, yes, though he didn't believe me."

"I might be with him on that one," said Reno. "You better not be holding out on us, old man. Shinra doesn't like being lied to. And you're not exactly without blame in all this yourself, you know. You started this damn ball rolling. Fuhito was _your_ student."

Nanaki could keep quiet no longer. "Grandpa, that red one says I have to go with them to their city. That's what they came here for. For me."

"Ah," said Bugenhagen slowly, giving them a look of such penetration that Aviva was forced to drop her eyes. "Now I understand. Why, may I ask?"

"Sorry," said Reno. "That's classified."

"They said I have to go with them tomorrow. Must I?"

Bugenhagen hovered in silence for a few moments, tenderly stroking the Creature's hard head. "Well, and why not, hoo, hoo?" he said at last with what sounded to Aviva like forced cheerfulness. "You're not a pup. It's time you saw something of the world beyond this canyon. And it seems the canyon needs you to go. For its own protection."

"How can I protect the canyon if I leave it? I don't understand, Grandpa."

"No. But they understand," he said, glancing at the Turks. "And I understand them, all too well. But listen to me, Nanaki. It's a wise soul that knows its purpose in this world. Forces are at work that even I don't fully comprehend. These Turks think they are serving their company by making you go with them - and they may be right, but there may also be other reasons, which none of us can see right now, why you, and you alone, must make this journey – "

The sage's words were interrupted by Reno, yawning ostentatiously and smacking his lips. "Man, it's been a long day," he sighed. "Don't know about you, Veev, but I could sure use a shower and a drink before this shindig gets started." He scratched his head. "OK, Bugenhagen, I'm leaving your cat with you. You just make sure he's down at the foot of the butte behind the village at ten-hundred hours tomorrow morning. We'll have the chopper waiting."

.

_The next evening_

In the hold of the Shinra Number 9, Nanaki lay down with his head resting on his paws. Aviva knelt beside him, her fingers combing through his long mane, braiding and unbraiding his hair. He did not tell her to stop, though she was taking a liberty he rarely permitted to strangers. He was tired, and the awe of the previous night's ceremony still lay heavily on him. His mind was filled with firelight and shadows, marvels and fears, and the touch of her hands was a comfort.

Reno's eyes were fixed on the view through the cockpit windscreen. Straight ahead the sky over the Great Continent had turned to inky night, dusted with glittering stars, but if he looked down he could see that the caps of the waves breaking upon the dark shore were reddened by the light of the setting sun. Suspended thus in a moment that was neither night nor day, it felt to him, just for a second, as if he were hovering in a bubble of eternity.

Then he laughed at himself and thought, _Fuck, I'm knackered._

He and Veev hadn't got much sleep. The ceremony had gone on almost till dawn, and since then she had said very little. Now he turned his head to look over his shoulder into the hold. Watching her deft fingers weave the animal's mane reminded him of the time he had allowed her to stroke his own hair. It had been in this very same helicopter. He remembered the coolness of her small hand resting against the nape of his neck, and how her touch had sent little shivers down his spine.

The two of them had taken on an entire army that day. Together with Sephiroth, they had saved Midgar –

But Sephiroth was dead, and times had changed. Those who lived in the past would soon be past themselves if they weren't careful. Forcing the memory aside, Reno made himself think instead about his plans for the evening ahead. Once he'd landed this thing, and delivered the specimen, he'd have to debrief, and what with everything that had happened it would probably be close to midnight before Tseng let them go – but Rude would wait, and then the two of them could take off together for the _Live and Let Live_. Reno could almost taste that shot-glass of milky liquor burning its way down its gullet. _My reward_, he what else? Oh, yeah – that new waitress at the all-nite diner up the road from the bar, the one in the see-through top and the skin-tight jeans; how could he have forgotten her? She'd definitely been giving him the come-on last time he ate there. Maybe tonight he'd give her the tip she'd been angling for, and he and Rude could finally settle their bet about whether her arse was that shape from nature or whether it was all down to the way she was poured into those jeans….

By keeping his mind fixed firmly on these sensual delights, Reno did not allow himself think about what would happen to the animal in his hold once he had delivered it to the science department. He did not think about how it must be feeling, taken so far from its home and from everyone it loved. He did not imagine its hopes, or its fears. He did not think about the equipment in Hojo's labs, about glass tanks or needles or rubber tubes or scapels; he did not think about Nibelheim, or Zack. He did not think about the loss of sky and air, of never feeling the sunlight on your face or the breeze on your skin. He did not think about a flame being slowly extinguished. Very carefully, and with a skill borne of long practice, Reno did not think about those things at all.


	34. Not the News We Wanted to Hear

**CHAPTER 34: NOT THE NEWS WE WANTED TO HEAR**

**-or-**

**WHAT TSENG DID THEN  
**_**In which our Chief Turk, concerned for the future of the company, is reprimanded by President Shinra, gets some information from Professor Hojo, and has a misunderstanding with Rufus.**_

_**

* * *

**_

That same evening, Tseng was keeping his prisoner company on the floor between floors while he awaited the return of Reno and Aviva from their mission to Cosmo Canyon. He and Rufus were playing chess, though his mind was not fully on the game. During his telephone conversation with Reno the previous afternoon, Reno had used the code words _cloudy skies_, which meant he had some information that he didn't want to risk imparting over the phone. Tseng hoped it was good news about Commander Veld, though under the circumstances it was hard to say what 'good news' would be. He longed for some sign that the Commander was alive, and yet he knew that it could bring them nothing but grief. No news was good news: the happiest outcome for all of them would be if they never saw or heard from the Commander again…

"It's your move," Rufus reminded him.

Pushing speculation aside, Tseng made himself concentrate on the game. After briefly pondering his limited choices – he was down to two pawns, a castle, and his king and queen – he took one of Rufus' knights with the castle. Rufus was, as always, white.

It went without saying that the heir to the Shinra Empire was a master of the game. Rufus could, and often did, play chess for hours at a stretch without getting bored; Tseng only played when Rufus needed someone to play with. Rufus knew how to conceal his grander strategy behind a series of seemingly random moves, and was willing to sacrifice his most powerful pieces in return for a critical advantage. Tseng, on the other hand, was constrained by his instinctive reluctance to lose even the least of his men. Nothing about the way these two played chess came as a surprise to anyone who knew them.

What might have come as a surprise, though, was how often Rufus tried to give Tseng the advantage. When Tseng protested, Rufus told him, "I have no intention of _letting_ you win. I'm merely leveling the playing field a little. It's more fun for me; like playing against myself. I plan out the chances I give you, you know, and it annoys me when you don't take them. I have to re-think my entire campaign."

"A good general never plays into his enemy's hands," was Tseng's reply.

He thought he could see what Rufus had in mind with the pawn now being offered to his castle. But what if he refused the bait? How would the endgame unfold then? Leaving his castle where it was, he sent his queen to threaten Rufus' king. Four moves later, his own king was in checkmate.

"Now look what you've done," said Rufus, flicking his hair out of his eyes. "You're so stubborn. And I was just trying to help you."

Tseng laid the king on its side and sat back in his chair.

"You seem preoccupied tonight," Rufus observed. "What's bothering you?"

_Many things. You. This situation. The situation upstairs. Whatever it is that Reno couldn't tell me over the phone._

"Work," he replied.

A smile touched the corners of Rufus' mouth. "Not the sorry state of humanity generally, then?" He began to set the antique pieces back in to their starting positions, glassy obsidian facing yellowed ivory.

In another month he would be twenty-two years old. Physically, a degree of filling out had taken place; his shoulders had broadened and his muscles had gained definition under the daily workout regimen his gaolers had imposed on him. His hair had turned a darker shade of blond, and his hands, with their long clever fingers, had developed hard knuckles. There was nothing pretty left in the beauty of his face, nothing childish about its appeal. Rufus was a man now. How much longer, Tseng wondered, did his father plan on keeping him locked up here, like a naughty child sent to its bedroom?

Hot on the heels of this thought, another: _I will miss him when he goes – _

It was less of a thought than a feeling, a slight and wistful newborn ache, squirming high up under his ribs. Instinctively, unhesitatingly, Tseng moved to stifle it. Personal preferences, his own or anyone else's, were immaterial

_ I've enjoyed these evenings we spend together…_

when the future welfare of the company was at stake, and the longer Rufus remained under house arrest, the greater the danger to the company became. His exclusion from the Board had led to a gradual shift in the locus of power that could, if allowed to continue unchecked, prove highly detrimental to the company's stability

_ There have been times when all I've had to look forward to is the certainty of sitting down to talk with him at the end of the day. He has a mind like a razor. I feel sharper when I'm with him…._

and damage Rufus' reputation, perhaps beyond repair. Amongst the ranks of the middle and senior managers, the Vice-President was increasingly being dismissed as a slacker conspicuous by his absence from corporate functions, a playboy off gallivanting around the world on his perpetual 'business trip'

_ He doesn't call me Boss or Sir and wait for me to tell him what to do. He doesn't give me orders and take it for granted that I'll obey. He is not my subordinate. And he is not my employer…_

but if Scarlet had her way, as she was doing more and more these days, the Vice-President's exile might be extended indefinitely. Tseng wondered how much she knew about Rufus' connections with AVALANCHE. Had the Old Man let her in on the secret? Did his confidence in her extend that far? Or had she worked out the truth for herself? Tseng thought it unlikely she had ever believed in the business trip story, despite the effort his team had put into fabricating the evidence, writing fictional press releases and doctoring photos to show Rufus posing with Wuteng factory workers or shaking hands with grunts in remote army postings

_ So are we friends now, he and I? Is that what we have become?_

but the face-saving story had been stretched so thin, it was by now practically transparent. Scarlet was more than shrewd enough to see through it, though she was willing to play along with the lie in return for the opportunities it presented. Scarlet was a woman in her prime, a clever woman, vigorous and decisive. She had plans for the company's future: new policies, fresh directions. The remaining members of the Board lacked the will and the energy to oppose her. Heidegger was happy to be led by the nose. Reeve had retreated into his dream world. Palmer… Had there ever been a point to Palmer? Hojo followed his own agenda and was accountable to no one…

And the Old Man was lonely.

The exact nature of the relationship developing between the President and his Head of Weapons Development was something that Tseng had, at first, found difficult to define. He had failed to unearth any evidence that they were sleeping together. President Shinra in his old age preferred his sexual congress to be brief and businesslike, and so ran for that purpose an account at the Honeybee Inn, always ordering the same few favourite girls who knew their way around his likes and dislikes.

No, Scarlet's growing hold over him appeared to be of a different kind entirely, and one much less likely to grow stale. In the void left by the defection of Lazard and the treachery of Rufus she had become like a daughter to him; she was the second self his sons had never been, affectionate, admiring, and supportive. Was this merely an act on her part? Tseng wished he could think so, but all his past experience with Scarlet suggested otherwise. She was hard-headed and ambitious, but she was a poor actress. Her fondness for the Old Man, and his for her, seemed sincere and unforced: a mutual appreciation society…

"Tseng, are you listening? It's your move."

Tseng choose a pawn at random, moved it a square.

Rufus said, "If, upon reflection, you wish to take that move back, I'll let you."

_ Is __he__ lonely?_ Tseng wondered._ Does he ache to escape from this prison? He must do. What kind of life is this for a young man? _

Each of Rufus' days was identical to the one before. He rose at six, worked out for several hours on the machines the Turks had set up for him in the cooler room, showered, ate breakfast while listening to the radio news, and then settled down to study the books borrowed for him from Mayor Domino's library. It was his habit to engross himself in one or two subjects for weeks or months on end, then abruptly lose interest and move on to something else. Right now he was working his way through evolutionary biology and biochemical engineering; last month's obsession had been macroeconomics, and before that, mako processing –

"No?" said Rufus. "All right then. Don't say I didn't warn you."

- And two or three times a week, in the middle of the night, when the building was almost empty, one of the Turks, usually Cavour or Rosalind, put a hood over Rufus' head and took him down in the service elevator to the shooting range for target practice. Tseng occasionally went along to watch; to evaluate, if the truth were told, though he had been unprepared for the burst of pride he had felt the first time he realized that Rufus had a true affinity for firearms, a gift: straight eye, steady hand, shatterproof nerves and impeccable timing.

_ I __must__ talk to him about Scarlet, _Tseng resolved. _He can't go on avoiding the issue. I have to __make__ him listen. His father is bound to take him back soon. Before that happens, he needs to know who his enemies are. _

Over the past few months Tseng had tried, on several occasions, to raise the subject of what was happening in the Boardroom, but his efforts had been met with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. Rufus preferred to talk about chess, or the economics of maritime shipping, or the taxonomy of monsters – whatever happened to be his current obsession.

_ He used to be so determined, so restless, so – angry. What happened to that cold fire? Has it been beaten out of him? Did I let things go too far? This life can't possibly satisfy him, yet he acts as if he's perfectly content. It's not good for him. Things can't go on like this. He needs to get out of here and back where he belongs, back at the heart of things, back at his father's side, before that clever bitch Scarlet burrows in so deep that nothing can dislodge her. _

_ And yet…_

Rufus sat with his long body curved in a graceful arch, the tip of his right index finger hovering pensively above the carved head of an ivory pawn. His paleness, and the way he sat there without moving, lost in thought, made Tseng think of a river in winter, its deeper, darker, warmer waters rushing unseen beneath the smooth white ice.

_ He has become necessary to me_, Tseng realized. _How did I let that happen? _

Tseng's phone rang, making them both jump.

Caller ID said _Reno_. Tseng had almost forgotten he was awaiting their return from Cosmo Canyon. He answered it curtly, "Yes, my office. I'll be right there," and stood up. "Debriefing," he explained to Rufus. "You'll have to excuse me."

Rufus waved a hand. "If you see Rude around, tell him to come down here and play a game with me. At least he _tries _to win."

Tseng hastened up to his office, where he found Reno and Aviva waiting for him, both of them looking a little feverish: wan and tired, but with bright, excited eyes. Tseng's stomach knotted anxiously. "What did Bugenhagen say?" he asked them. "Was the rumour true?"

The two Turks exchanged glances. Aviva seemed hesitant to speak, but Reno was grinning. "You might want to shut that," he said, nodding at Tseng's office door. "Because we've got some news for you. Some good news, and some bad news. Which one you want to hear first, Boss?"

* * *

"This is not the news I wanted to hear," said the Old Man to Tseng at their meeting the next morning.

_Neither did I, _thought Tseng.

In her chair at the old man's side, Scarlet uncrossed and re-crossed her legs, filling the moment's silence with a whispery rasp of nylon against nylon.

"I look for better things from you, _Director_," the Old Man went on. "Dedication. Results. The Board did not unanimously support your appointment, you know. Some of them felt quite strongly that your ethnicity meant you couldn't be trusted. But I fought for you. I believed in you. I thought you had what it took to put an end to the AVALANCHE threat. That you understood the meaning of the word _gratitude. _ Unlike your predecessor."

The Old Man leaned back in his leather seat, lips pursed, and stared down at his Chief Turk, who was standing at attention on the other side of the massive chrome desk. Tseng had composed his features to indicate that he was listening attentively, and had no opinions of his own to express.

Scarlet, meanwhile, appeared to be studying her lacquered nails, but Tseng could feel her watching him from under her veiled lashes.

The Old Man said, "I'm very disappointed to learn that that backstabber Veld is still alive, Tseng. Exceedingly disappointed. Words can't express how disappointed I am…."

Encouraged by Tseng's dutiful silence, as well as by Scarlet's attentive presence at his side, the Old Man launched into a litany of complaints, becoming a little red in the face as he worked himself up into a fit of pique against his old friend. It soon became apparent to Tseng that in the Old Man's imagination Veld's crimes had multiplied exponentially over the years, to the extent that he now seemed to believe his one-time boon companion had been in league with AVALANCHE right from the very start; that Veld's long years of faithful service had been no more than a pretence designed to dupe his trusting employer; that he was, in fact, the mastermind behind every terrorist attack made against the company in the last twenty years.

_Are you insane? _Tseng almost asked it out loud. _That makes no sense at all!_

He caught Scarlet with her eyes wide open, watching him intently. The faintest hint of smugness, a slight curve of her lips, crossed her face; then she was once again giving all her attention to the President.

"You think you know a person," the Old Man confided to her in a maudlin stage whisper. "You think they're your friend. You trust them with your secrets, your life's work, everything. And then they turn on you for no reason at all."

"That's so true," she murmured, stroking the freckled back of his hand.

"God knows, I'm not vindictive. Nobody could call me a vindictive man. But I can't forgive him."

"When your dog bites the hand that feeds it, the only sensible thing is to have it put down."

The Old Man turned back to Tseng, and his face once again hardened. "Veld should have been terminated years ago. Your department is going to have to start making a bit more effort, _Director_. You're beginning to look like you're just _messing around._ This company has no use for employees who don't take their job seriously. You should give that some thought. I have every confidence you'll make the right choice. That's all. You can go."

Dismissed from the Presidential presence, Tseng walked down the curved sweep of stairs to the floor below, and then through the swing door into the echoing stairwell. Here he paused for a while, pressing his forehead against the cold concrete wall.

So much, then, for the faint hope that the intervening years might have softened the Old Man's heart.

Tseng's long apprenticeship under Veld meant that he was in no doubt as to what his proper course of action must now be. The Commander had entrusted the Turks to his care. At the first sign of weakness their enemies would come down on them, knives at the ready. Scarlet was watching for any hint of divided loyalties, and Heidegger was eagerly awaiting the order to move in for the kill.

Sentimentality had always been Tseng's stumbling block, as Veld had never ceased to remind him. He must not give in to it now; there could be no greater betrayal of everything the Commander had believed in and trained him to be. Turks did not indulge their personal feelings at the expense of the department. Individuals were not important. The good of the team as a whole took priority. What mattered was to complete the mission, by whatever means necessary, whatever that mission might be. The Commander expected no less.

If it had to be done, Tseng would do it. Not one of the others. He could not ask them to shoulder such a burden. Bearing the guilt was what a chief was for. Already he already exactly how the final act would play out; he'd had the scenario scriptd in his mind for years, though he had always imagined a different dear face at the other end of his gun. Which would hold two bullets…

When – if – that terrible moment came, Tseng would nothing left to hope for but the courage to hold the gun steady and make the shot quick and clean and true, so that Commander Veld need have no reason to be ashamed of him at the last.

But…

Before they could kill the Chief, they first had to find him.

Tseng was pinning all his hopes on Veld not making this easy for them. The re-emergence of AVALANCHE was thus a blessing in disguise. Those terrorists were the real PR nightmare, and therefore they had to be the Turks' top priority. Chasing AVALANCHE would tie up manpower and resources that would otherwise have been concentrated on the hunt for the renegade Commander, and that should buy Tseng, and Veld, some time.

Tseng was not ready to despair, not yet. Far from it. A plan of sorts was even now hatching in his mind. Maybe, just maybe, if he and his team could succeed in eliminating Fuhito and putting an end to AVALANCHE once and for all, the Old Man might be moved to reward their efforts by allowing their Chief to live. The chances were slim, Tseng had to admit. And it wasn't much of a plan – more a kind of rough-edged, over-optimistic wish. But still, it was something to hold on to.

Having made these resolutions, he proceeded down the stairs to the lab, where he found the Professor engrossed in his latest specimen. "It's not speaking," Hojo complained, rapping on the glass with his knuckle. The creature snarled and turned over, revealing the rawness of a chemical tattoo burnt into its left shoulder. "All my research indicated that it should be able to speak. What's wrong with it?"

Reno had told Tseng that the creature could talk 'better than most people', but looking at it now Tseng was forced to wonder just how drunk Reno had been when he'd heard the animal speak. Lying on the steel floor of the tank, it looked as miserable, and as dumb, as a wet cat.

In any case, it was not his concern. He dismissed it from his mind and said, "Professor, I have something I need to ask you."

"Oh, am I in trouble? What have I done now?" Hojo's playful laugh was even worse than his crazy laugh; the sound grated like fingernails along Tseng's nerves. He could never hear that laugh without thinking of Zack and Mozo. Through gritted teeth he replied, "No, sir. It's about the – experiments you carried out on the survivors of the Kalm bombing."

"Hmm? That's pretty old data. It's mostly out of date now."

"Did you ever put materia into any of the – specimens?"

"I might have done. I had a number of theories…. But it's like panning for gold, science. You have to sift through so much dross to find those few small nuggets that make it all worthwhile."

"I'm specifically interested in a girl."

"Heh, aren't we all?" Hojo chuckled. His adam's apple bobbed up and down. Tseng felt his hands itching to close around that pallid throat. He shoved them into his pockets.

From the specimen tank came a flare of light. The creature was lashing its tail. Hojo turned away from Tseng and bent his face towards the tube, peering over the tops of his glasses.

Tseng asked him, "Did you put a summons materia into the body of one of the Kalm survivors? A young woman? She would have been about seventeen. Do you remember anything about that?"

"I can't say that I do," Hojo replied absent-mindedly.

"Then would you give my department authorization to check the records of those experiments?"

"The records are kept at Nibelheim. In the library. Oh, but – " Hojo straightened up and looked sharply at Tseng. "You're talking about Commander Veld's daughter, aren't you?"

Tseng's pulse quickened. "Am I?"

"Oh, yes, yes, yes. She's definitely the one you mean. Why are you asking? Has that old rogue turned up again?"

"This is merely routine. Can you tell me what happened to the girl?"

"Oh yes. It was a very interesting case. When Veld brought her to me she was dying. I told him it was hopeless - but then, inspiration came to me. What would happen if I were to put a _broken _materia inside her body? That broken summons had been lying around in my lab for years; it was good for nothing else. My theory was that the body would slowly draw out the energy through the fracture in the shell and use it to sustain itself while it healed – a sort of osmosis, if you like. Energy transferred from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration until the two were in stasis. The biochemistry was fairly basic, but my theory was only partially correct. She didn't die, and her body did heal, but she never woke up. Disruption of synaptical functions in all cortices was severely advanced. Her cognitive wiring got overheated," he rephrased for Tseng's benefit. "We couldn't kick start her at all. When we wrapped up the program I tried to reclaim the materia, but it had fused with her flesh. We had to throw the lot out, materia, body, everything."

Tseng's hands were fists inside his pockets. He kept his voice steady. "She was dead?"

"It depends what you mean by _dead. _My technicians deal with specimen disposal, so she certainly should have been. It was a shame about the materia. I've never achieved such good results with any other. It _was_ a very powerful summons. Useless without the support materia, of course."

"Do you know where the support materia are?"

Hojo frowned. "If I knew, it wouldn't be useless, would it? Do try to use what little brain you have, Turk. The mako stream throws these crystals up at random. They could be anywhere. It's equally possible that they don't yet exist."

"Does the summons have a name?"

"Icalled it Zirconiade. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?" He turned to look over his shoulder at the creature in the tank. Tseng could see that the Professor was growing bored with their conversation and would soon terminate it. He needed to make his next question count.

"Can you tell me where you found the summons, sir?"

"I didn't find it. One of your Turks found it, years ago, by the mako fountain near the Nibelheim reactor."

"Which Turk?"

"You cannot expect me to remember all these insignificant details," said Hojo testily. "In any case, he's dead now. And you've wasted quite enough of my time this morning with your inane questions. If you want to know about materia, go bother Scarlet's people. I lost interest in that branch of science years ago."

Leaving the lab, Tseng once again took the stairs. He needed to walk off the tension in his neck and shoulders. If his team hadn't been waiting impatiently for him in the briefing room he would have gone straight down to the gym, beaten the stuffing out of the punching bag for half an hour, and then showered in the hottest water he could stand. Dealing with Hojo always left him feeling pent-up and itchy, contaminated. Still, he'd managed to get what he needed: confirmation that it was Hojo, and not Fuhito, who had put the summons into the Commander's daughter. How she'd ended up in Fuhito's hands was something that could only be guessed at, and since Tseng did not deal in idle speculation he put that question aside for now. One day, perhaps, all would be revealed, but he wasn't counting on it.

_Find Felicia_, Bugenhagen had told Reno, _and you'll find Veld. _ And where Felicia was, there would Fuhito be.

Bugenhagen might well have added, _Find the support materia, and you'll get the drop on all three. _

_._

Evening was closing in outside the office windows by the time Tseng finished briefing his Turks. Despite some misgivings, he had decided to share with them his hope that by putting an end to AVALANCHE, they might win a reprieve for the Chief, though he stressed that this was at best a long shot, and made it clear that the Old Man had neither done nor said anything to suggest that such a thought might be in his mind. Tseng promised his team nothing. He didn't want to mislead them.

Still, the faint hope he held out was enough to get them motivated. That afternoon they set to work with an energy and unity of purpose that had not been seen on their floor for years, and Tseng, satisfied with the effect his words had produced, set off down to the surveillance room to talk to Rufus. The Vice-President was sitting in his armchair leafing through the _Shinra Times_, but when he heard Tseng approach he jumped up, saying, "You took your time. What's going on? Something big is happening, I can sense it, but Skeeter wouldn't tell me anything when he brought me my lunch."

"I'm here to tell you now," said Tseng. "Let's sit down."

He watched Rufus's face closely as he delivered the news. It would not have been impossible for AVALANCHE to have established some sort of contact with Shinra's invisible Vice-President, either through the Internet, or by using the personal columns of the newspaper. But Rufus' astonishment seemed unfeigned. "I'd assumed they were all dead, and that AVALANCHE had disbanded," he said. "Why didn't you tell me before?"

"This has come as news to all of us. We've heard nothing from them since Corel."

"But this means we're essentially back where we were three years ago. Veld's still on the run, Fuhito still has Elfe, AVALANCHE is still a threat, and you're no closer to catching any of them. Forgive me, but I don't quite see what everyone is getting so excited about. Nothing has changed."

"You've changed, I hope."

Two spots of colour unexpectedly stained Rufus' cheeks. The young man glanced down at his hands as if he were honestly confused, and said in a more guarded tone, "I don't know what you mean."

Tseng wasn't having any of that. "You know exactly what I mean. We've put a lot of work into you."

"Work?" Rufus raised blank blue eyes to Tseng's face. "Is that what it was?"

"You were a threat to the company."

There was a scrabbling of claws, and the little ginger cat appeared on the back of Rufus' armchair. Purring loudly, it rubbed its face along his jaw, jumped down onto his lap, turned around three times, and curled up with its head in the crook of his elbow. Rufus bent over to rub its ear.

"So what am I now?" he asked. "Aside from your prisoner, that is."

There was something almost childlike about the way Rufus was sitting, the warm little animal cradled in his arm. It called up memories of those far-off days when Dark Nation was still a kitten small enough to be carried in a child's pocket and smuggled into formal dinners. _Scratch the surface of the man_, thought Tseng, _and you find the boy he once was hidden not far beneath_.

Aloud he said, "You've been our prisoner for too long already, but there's nothing I can do about that right now. Your father made it clear to me this morning that you must remain in our custody for as long as AVALANCHE remain a threat."

"Oh, I do apologise. Please forgive me for being such a burdensome addition to your workload."

Tseng heard the bitterness behind the boy's sarcasm, and took no offense. "Rufus," he said with unaccustomed gentleness. "Listen to me. There's something you need to understand. I believe that the decision to extend your - " Tseng was about to say _punishment_, but changed it to, "Exclusion from the Board, wasn't entirely your father's doing. There's someone else in this company who has a vested interest in keeping you out of sight. Someone who has amassed a good deal of influence over the last couple of years, at your expense."

"Ah," said Rufus slowly, sounding amused. "So you've decided to tackle the subject of Scarlet head-on at last."

Tseng was thrown off his stride by that comment, as Rufus had certainly intended he should be. Seeing Tseng momentarily lost for words, Rufus added, "You've evidently forgotten that I still have S-level access. One can learn a great deal reading between the lines of the Board's transactions."

"I didn't think you ever looked at them."

"You don't see everything I do. You're not always here, are you? You have work to do_. Other_ work. I, on the other hand, never leave this room. I see no one but Turks. I have to occupy my mind somehow."

"You gave me the impression you had no interest in what was going on upstairs."

Rufus lifted one eyebrow. "Did it occur to you that perhaps I'm laying low and biding my time?"

The young man's smile, and his tone of voice, were playful; one might have thought he was teasing, but in those blue eyes the Turk perceived a stirring of something deeper and more strongly felt. So, Rufus wasn't quite as content with his lot as he'd been making himself out to be? Tseng was glad to see it. That cold fire hadn't been extinguished, after all; it had merely been banked against the day when it would be needed.

For the first time that day, Tseng felt a little easier in his mind. Settling himself more comfortably in his chair, he said, "All right, then. Why don't you tell me what you know about Scarlet."

"I understand she was the one who insisted on destroying Corel?"

"Yes," Tseng nodded.

"My father considered rebuilding it along with the reactor, but she talked him out of it. She said it was an unnecessary expense, and that the survivors would disperse if left to their own devices, which would be better, from our point of view, than having them concentrated together in one place. Is that what's happened?"

"Some have moved away, but not many. They have no money and nowhere to go. There's no work. The mines have been closed for nearly three years now."

"Weren't they supposed to get jobs in the reactor?"

"Those jobs went to workers who were recruited here in Midgar, or in Junon. She said the Corelians couldn't be trusted."

Rufus looked a little put out. "That decision wasn't minuted."

"It wasn't discussed. Very little is, these days. Your father and Scarlet make most of the policy between them."

Rufus took his time thinking about this. While he did so, Tseng watched him closely, trying to fathom what was going on behind those opaque blue eyes. He pictured the wheels of Rufus' mind turning, and imagined them in motion like the mechanism of a luxury watch: countless tiny, fine-toothed, golden cogs whirring soundlessly on their diamond bearings.

"Does Scarlet know about me?" Rufus asked at last.

"She's never given any indication of it. But she's no fool. I would operate on the assumption that, at the very least, she knows you're not on a business trip."

Again Rufus fell silent. He sat for almost a minute, lost in thought. Then he gently pushed the cat from his lap – it jumped to the ground with an aggrieved air, tail twitching – got to his feet, and began to pace restlessly around his living space.

"What else has she been up to that I don't know about?" he demanded.

"She's cut the pensions we pay to the survivors of the Gongaga reactor explosion by fifty percent. That's below starvation wages."

Rufus waved a hand. "Gongaga is practically off the map. No one cares what happens there. What else?"

Tseng's eye fell on the newspaper lying folded on the table. Its headline read, _'Juice-Jackers: More Arrests. Outrage Over Outages'._ He held it up to show to Rufus. "Have you read this?"

"Heidegger's crackdown on the electricity pirates? Yes."

"PSM made twelve more arrests after this edition went to bed. He's shut down nearly a third of the slums' parallel grid. The riots have been spectacular. You should watch them on the evening news."

Again the quizzical lift of the golden eyebrow. "I thought our policy was to turn a blind eye?"

"It used to be. When the Commander was in charge we worked together with Don Corneo to stop the pilfering from getting out of hand. Corneo managed an unofficial licensing system for us. It was one less thing for us to worry about, and a steady source of revenue for him. Whenever the jackers got too greedy we'd pull in a couple and make an example of them, but otherwise we let Corneo run the show. It helped keep the lid on things down there. A small price to pay, we thought. Evidently Scarlet sees thing differently."

Rufus twitched his head to throw the hair out of his eyes. "The paper says this is Heidegger's initiative."

"Director Heidegger has no initiative. He does what she tells him to do."

Rufus considered this. Then he said, "I presume she has a rationale?"

"Midgar's sitting on a population time bomb. Since the war with Wutai ended we've had no outlet for our surplus manpower. There's a constant flood of immigration into the city and stemming it has proved to be almost impossible. Scarlet wants to make life so uncomfortable for them that they'll give up and move elsewhere, and Reeve Tuesti is broadly in favour; he'd like to see the slums cleaned out so that he can rebuild them. Her latest plan is to close the free dispensaries, and cut our support for the charity clinics."

"That's not necessarily the worst idea she's ever had, though, if what you say about the population is true."

Tseng was disappointed by this flippant answer. He'd been hoping for something a little more insightful, or at least more sincere. He tried again. "Listen to me, Rufus. Nobody is going to lay down and die simply because they're an inconvenience to Shinra. You have a responsbility to try to understand what's going on out there. People are getting desperate. The economy of the whole western continent is sliding into a depression right now. Relations with Wutai are as bad as they've ever been short of outright war. The only industry that's growing is tourism. Gold Saucer takes most of the power we generate in Corel. North Corel is a festering boil. Before all this happened, they feared us, but they had faith in us. Now, they hate us, and they're not the only ones."

Rufus tossed his head. "You know what, Tseng? You're starting to sound more and more like my old man, fussing about what the public will think."

The beginnings of a band of frustration were tightening around Tseng's forehead. Rufus was too intelligent for this. "What the people think is important," he said, trying not to sound as impatient as he felt. "Don't delude yourself otherwise. This company can't afford to make itself hated. Right now the majority of the population both loves and fears Shinra. They fear us for what we might do to them, but they love us even more, because of the quality of life we give them, and they're unwilling to risk making us angry, in case we take that away. They're afraid of losing what they've got. But people who have nothing to lose…. They have nothing to fear, either."

He paused, offering Rufus the opportunity to comment. The young man was standing still now, leaning his elbows on the back of his armchair, and he was clearly listening and thinking hard. But he didn't seem to want to say anything. Tseng went on, "The kind of policies Scarlet is promoting can only foster hatred. Over in the west, and here in our own slums, they exacerbate the conditions that breed terrorism. It's no wonder AVALANCHE have re-emerged. I'm sure they have very little difficulty finding willing recruits."

"No doubt," said Rufus, "But what exactly am I supposed to do about it?"

This was not exactly the response that Tseng had been aiming for… and yet, to be fair, Rufus had a point. "For now, very little," he admitted. "I'd hoped to see you out of our custody by now and back on the Board, but realistically that's unlikely to happen in the near future – "

To his surprise, and annoyance, Rufus started chuckling.

"That amuses you?" Tseng frowned.

"Well, you must admit it's handy for Scarlet that AVALANCHE should happen to rear their ugly heads again at this precise moment. I do find it ironic that they continue to make themselves so useful to so many people in so many ways. Do you know, Tseng, my father once told me that every time AVALANCHE blew up a reactor, our approval rating went up twenty points. It must have gone through the roof after they burnt down Corel."

The band around Tseng's forehead knotted a little tighter. "That's nothing to laugh at."

"And when they destroyed Nibelheim – the whole world must have been in love with us then. In fact, Tseng, if AVALANCHE didn't exist, I think that we would have found it necessary to invent them."

The eyes holding Tseng's own were glittering. This conversation was slipping out of his control; hijacked by a mind sharper than his own, it was about to spin off in a direction he hadn't intended and did not wish to pursue. Shifting in his seat, he made an effort to regain the upper hand by saying sternly, "Rufus, I am trying to have a serious discussion with you about a matter of the utmost importance."

"Are you implying that I'm not taking you seriously?"

"You're deliberately trying to change the subject."

"Am I? How?"

"Surely you see that in the present situation, Director Scarlet poses as much of a threat to Shinra as AVALANCHE does. If no one calls her to heel, she could do irreparable damage to this company. My job is to stop that from happening."

"Which brings me back to my previous question – what, exactly, do you expect me to do about it?"

"You could put your mind to it, instead of wasting your time reading monster manuals and playing chess."

Rufus laughed. "Now that _really _is ironic. The fact is, Tseng, Scarlet can't do a thing without my father's permission. I offered you a perfectly good solution to his mismanagement three years ago, and I've been imprisoned in here ever since for my pains, so you'll have to forgive me if I feel a little reluctant to get involved."

Tseng pressed his knuckles to his forehead and took a deep steadying breath. "Rufus, you're not still your father's enemy, are you?"

"That all depends. Is he still a crass hypocritical cunt?"

It was the coarseness of the word that caught Tseng off-guard. His dismay was plain in his face, and Rufus, seeing it, laughed again. "Oh, don't worry, that was merely a rhetorical question. I wouldn't expect you to compromise yourself with a truthful answer. But please, when you report our little chat to him, don't forget to mention it. He'll be delighted, I promise you. He loves it when I nail him."

"You think your father orderedme to have this talk with you?"

"Of course. That's your job, isn't it? Your _work_. To interrogate the prisoner." Rufus moved as he talked, punctuating his words with sweeping gestures, like an actor. "Have I seen the error of my ways yet? Am I ready to receive my father's forgiveness? Do I know how lucky I am? Just whose side am I on?"

"All right, then," snapped Tseng, unable to repress his irritation any longer, "You tell me. Where _do_ your loyalties lie?"

"Ah, yes. _Loyalty. _Of course that's what this is all about. I should have known. We both owe them so much, don't we, those wonderful old men? But as I think I've explained to you before, Tseng, my association with AVALANCHE was entirely business. _Loyalty_ didn't come into it. I knew almost nothing about their agenda or their beliefs and to be honest, at the time I wasn't interested. I hired them to do a job of work for me. They repeatedly let me down. Obviously with hindsight I can see that I was incredibly naïve. Obviously I regret the reckless folly of my youthful actions. But I'm not going to keep apologizing for it."

Tseng's fingers itched to slap some sense into him. "I'm not interested in cheap apologies," he retorted. "You can't undo what you've done, and now we're living with the consequences. I want to make sure you don't keep on making the same mistakes. The future welfare of this company – "

"Oh, would you just _shut up_?" Rufus shouted. He'd dropped the arch tone, and the arrogant smirk was wiped from his face; he was simply, purely, completely angry. "I am so, so sick of hearing those damn words future bloody welfare of this company spewing from your lips. Do you think I'm ever in any danger of forgetting what matters to you?"

"To me?" Tseng shouted back. "It ought to matter to _you_."

"Yes, well - maybe I've come to realize that playing chess and reading monster manuals is just as rewarding and a lot less trouble than trying to fix everything that's wrong with my father's business." Rufus paused to catch his breath. A little of his composure returned to him. In a calmer voice, he said, "Prisoners don't give orders, and therefore I cannot tell you to get the hell out of my room. But I do request it. I think I've had enough of this little talk for the time being."

He sat down and picked up the _Shinra Times_, shaking it open so that it hid his face. Tseng glared at the wall of newspaper, baffled by the sheer intensity of his anger. What had just happened, exactly? Somehow their conversation had run amok, and he had allowed his temper to be provoked, meeting anger with anger just as Rufus must have intended… But what was Rufus so angry about? Was it because any hopes he might have had for freedom had been snatched away? Had he taken offense at the suggestion that he was still involved with AVALANCHE? Did he think that, having paid for his crimes, he ought to be trusted without question? Surely he was old enough now to know that life didn't work that way –

"You're still here," said Rufus from behind the paper.

Tseng was halfway out the door when Rufus called his name. He paused to consider whether he wanted to respond, before turning round. "Yes?" he asked.

"A thought has belatedly occurred to me. Veld's put you in something of a tight spot, hasn't he? What are you going to do if you find him? Would you actually kill him?"

"I'll do my job."

"Yes, of course," Rufus nodded slowly, "Of course. Well, I'm sure my father must find that very reassuring," and he returned to his paper with the air of a man who has had the final word. Tseng waited a moment or two, but Rufus did not look up again, and nothing broke the silence but the rustle of the newspaper and the purring of the cat. Tseng turned and walked away.

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_It's probably obvious that I'm neither a chess player or a scientist. Any suggestions for improvements would be very welcome._

_Thank you so much, everyone, for all your reviews, and for reading and sticking with this story. It means a lot._


	35. Take A Shot At Redemption

**CHAPTER 35: TAKE A SHOT AT REDEMPTION  
****In which the Turks hunt for the support materia, and some ghosts from the past begin to catch up with Tseng**

_[I feel bad about that morose poem, so here's another chapter to make up for it. Once again, my thanks to all who are reading and following this story. Even if you don't always review, it's great to look at my stats and know I have readers who keep coming back for more.]_

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_November 6__th__, 2006_

Tseng had a question he wanted to put to Bugenhagen himself, but it was not until nearly a week after his abortive conversation with Rufus that he was able to get away from Midgar and fly down to Cosmo Canyon, where Tys and Hunter were already at work searching for clues to AVALANCHE's whereabouts. "Shinra's flattering us with all this attention," Bugenhagen hooted in Tseng's ear. "I haven't seen this many suits in, oh, half a century, at least."

The old scientist was in an affable mood. He insisted on showing Tseng the improvements he had made to his giant orrery, and then invited the Turk to join him for tea. Over a table laden with red bean buns and slices of carrot cake he inquired anxiously about the health of The Creature. Tseng found the old man's concern for his pet rather touching (albeit, in view of the danger facing the planet, misplaced) and assured him that the animal was being well cared for before moving on to broach the topic he had come to Cosmo Canyon to discuss.

Taking a materia case out of his pocket, he opened it, removed the mystery materia he had found in Aviva's pocket at Corel, three years ago, and placed it on the table in front of Bugenhagen. "Do you recognize this?" he asked.

Bugenhagen took his time answering, holding the materia up to the light and turning it this way and that before saying decisively, "No."

"Could it be the support materia for the summons in Elfe's hand?"

"Hoo, it _could_ be anything. Where did you find it?"

Tseng briefly explained, and Bugenhagen listened, while continuing to roll the materia around in his fingers, watching the colours change and the triangle shimmer. When Tseng was done, he said, "I suppose it's possible, but then why would Veld put it in your Turk's pocket if Elfe needs it? You'd think he'd guard it with his life. Her memory's a blank, you say?"

"That's correct."

"And Veld told me he didn't know what the support materia looked like, which would suggest either that he wasn't the one who put this in Aviva's pocket, or else that he knew it isn't the support materia."

"Well, it was worth a try," said Tseng, taking it back and locking it into its case. "We still can't rule it out. Now, Professor – I have a question to ask about this summons materia in Elfe's hand. If it's really as powerful as you say it is, then it's a summons that can only be used once. We're all still here, which implies that no one's ever used it. So how do you know it can do what you say it can do?"

Bugenhagen chuckled. "I always said you were the smart one, Director. You're quite right; I don't _know_ anything of the sort. All I can tell you is what Ifalna told me."

This was the first time Aerith's mother had been mentioned in connection with the materia they sought. Tseng sat up even straighter. "When did Ilfana talk to you about it?" he asked.

"When she and Gast passed through here. How long ago was that? Twenty years already? Maybe more. You lose all track of time when you get to my age."

"But why would she tell you? Why would she mention it?"

"Perhaps because she felt someone ought to know?" Bugenhagen suggested patiently, as if addressing a child.

"My question was poorly-worded. I meant to say, how did she know about it?"

"Ah, yes. That is a good point. Bear with me, and I'll see if I can explain. It was around thirty years ago, when Gast was still the head of the department. He sent one of his junior scientists to Nibelheim to work under Hojo. She was writing a dissertation on cataclysmic materia – Chaos, if I remember rightly. I forget her name…. Anyway, she was the one who found the summons. No, wait, I'm wrong. It was one of your people. He was working with her, I think. Does that make sense?"

"He was guarding the project, probably. What was his name?"

"Ooo, it's on the tip of my tongue. I knew his father. Grimsby? Boudoir? No, Grimoire - Grimoire Valentine, that's it. Old Grimmy was one of the company's early materia specialists. I suppose that would explain why the son recognized a unique materia when he found one. I think he found a couple of the support materia too. Anyway, knowing the lady scientist's interest, he gave it to her, and she took it to Ifalna to find out what it was. And Ifalna broke it."

"She _broke_ it?" Tseng echoed in surprise. "Is that possible?"

"Ah – perhaps she did not _break_ it, precisely. Hobbled it. _Hampered_ it. She gave it back to the scientist and told her it was useless. I am assuming that's why it ended up gathering dust on Hojo's shelf, though I have no idea what happened to the support materia."

"Why did she break it?"

Bugenhagen smiled at him. "I think, myself, from what Ifalna said, that she didn't trust this lady scientist not to do something foolish."

.

_Valentine…. Valentine…._ All the way back to Midgar Tseng's thoughts kept returning to this name. He was sure he'd heard it before. Why couldn't he put a face to the name? If this Turk Valentine had been working in Nibelheim thirty years ago, that would be round about the same time the company had moved its headquarters into the as-yet unfinished Shinra Building. Veld would have only just been appointed as Head of Administrative Research. The department had been smaller then…

Tseng knew that he would almost certainly find the answers he sought in the records Hojo maintained in the library at Nibelheim, but since Hojo continued to refuse to allow the Turks to enter the mansion, that line of inquiry was closed to him for the time being. The best place to start looking, then, would be his own department's historical archives.

It was past midnight by the time he landed in Midgar. He went at once to the 66th floor, unlocked the door to Veld's office, and switched on the light. Memories rushed to assail him, but he was prepared for that. Closing his mind against them, he crossed over to the desk and sat down in Veld's studded leather chair. Months had passed since anyone was last here. A thin white film of dust coated every surface. Whatever Tseng touched retained the clear impression of his fingerprints.

Departmental protocol, and the limitations of computer memory, dictated that after five years mission reports were deleted from the server and stored on disks; after another five years the disks were moved from the Turks' floor to the vaults beneath the car park. Duplicates were made, of course; Veld had kept them in a filing cabinet in his storage closet. What Tseng needed was the spare key to this cabinet. He ran his hand blindly around the underside of Veld's desk, feeling for the latch to the hidden drawer where he knew the key lay.

His fingertips encountered something hard and pointed; a split-second later his brain identified it as the corner of a folded slip of paper, wedged into the narrow gap between the desk frame and the top drawer. Had it been hidden there on purpose? Or had it slipped down the back of the drawer by accident? The latter seemed the likelier explanation; it would explain why he'd missed finding it earlier.

Using his fingernails Tseng worked the paper loose and brought it out into the light. It had been tightly folded many times. He opened it out and saw a phone number written in faded blue ink, together with a name: _Cecilia Naylor._

It was not a name he recognized, yet it rang a distant bell. He felt he _should_ know it, that this Cecilia Naylor was someone Veld must have mentioned to him in the past – possibly someone important.

He read the name again. He looked at the number. A cell phone.

He spoke the name out loud. "Cecilia Naylor?"

And then he knew.

.

Through the weeks that followed, that name and that phone number hovered at the edge of Tseng's consciousness, on standby, so to speak, as if he'd already made up his mind that sooner or later he would find a use for them.

The archives had given him no hint of where to search for the support materia, though the yellowing 'change of status' notification he'd found at the end of Valentine's file had confirmed that the Turk was dead. Reading it, a memory long buried in Tseng's mind rose to the surface: he saw himself, aged nine or ten years old, kneeling beside a cardboard box in the store-cupboard on the twenty-third floor, holding an old ID card in his hand. The face in the mugshot had been that of a very young man - a boy, really; a serious boy, with a long black fringe of hair falling over his eyes, as if he were shy, or hiding from something he did not want to see. Time had worn away the rusted blood, but the stains in the plastic, and the chip taken out by a bullet's bite, remained.

_Vincent Valentine. _Veld's voice spoke inside his head. _We worked together. I was young then._

If this Vincent had lived, thought Tseng, he'd be nearly as old as Veld now. That boy's face, frozen in death, would have been eaten by time, seamed with wrinkles, pouchy round the eyes, hair thinning and silvery at the temples…

But Valentine was definitely dead, and so was Tseng's most promising line of inquiry. Their best hope now was that the field teams would come up with something. Down on the 48th floor he stood facing Veld's whiteboard, contemplating the chart he had made that indicated each Turk's name, whereabouts, and mission:

_Skeeter, Aviva. Fort Condor. Materia?_

_ Mink. Bone Village. Materia?_

_ Tys. Hunter. Cosmo Canyon. AVALANCHE_

_ Knox. Mideel/marine caves. Materia?_

Knox was the first to return. He had found nothing, though he had managed to spend a little time with his children. Tseng asked if that had gone well.

"As well as could be expected, I guess," the tall Gongagan answered slowly. "But I'm starting to think that maybe Barbara is right. I'm not a part of their lives any more. To be honest, Boss, I hardly know who they are now. They're not the little boys I remember. And Barbara's new husband… They call him Dad. They tried not to around me, but they kept forgetting."

The scars that criss-crossed the left side of Knox's face made his expression hard to read. Tseng wasn't sure how to respond, or what kind of reaction Knox was expecting, and so he fell back on an inadequate cliché. "You'll always be their father. Nothing can change that."

Knox's answering shrug was one of the saddest gestures Tseng had ever seen; it made him think of Zack stroking his hand down Angeal's Buster Sword. "Yeah, well…" he said, "I let them go, didn't I?"

_But in the end, that's what we all have to do_, Tseng reflected. He was thinking of Veld – and of Aerith.

Months had gone by since he'd last spoken to her. According to the daily surveillance reports, she had recently starting dating again, first an engineer from the Sector Seven station yard, and then a market trader who came into Midgar once a week from Kalm. She'd been out with each of them only a couple of times before she'd lost interest… _But still, it's a good sign,_ Tseng told himself._ It's a start. _

The white Angeal clone continued to roost in her church; Aerith tended to it as if it were a flower. Her business was going well. She came above the plate now and went all over Midgar, into neighbourhoods where she knew nobody, flirting with danger. Of course she was aware that the Turks were keeping an eye on her; Tseng wondered if it was this knowledge that provoked her to recklessness sometimes. On three separate occasions recently muggers had tried to rob her of her flower money, and though each attempt had been foiled by the Turk who was tailing her, Aerith, true to form, had not been remotely grateful – quite the opposite, in fact, turning on her minders and berating them for 'interfering' and for using 'outrageous force'. Tseng enjoyed picturing what her face must have looked like as she delivered these words.

After the third attempted mugging she had enrolled herself at a martial arts school in Wall Market, but was, according to Reno, "bloody useless. The way she taps with those little fists of hers wouldn't knock out a fly. You ought to give her a gun, except she'd probably shoot me with it."

"You know what, Reno?" Tseng replied, "That's not a bad suggestion."

"Boss!" Reno clutched his heart dramatically. "You wound me!"

It took Tseng a moment to catch Reno's meaning; he'd been thinking of something else. Aerith's decision to learn self-defense was clearly a declaration of independence, and he had no problem with that – a pretty young girl with money, whose business took her into some of the dodgiest parts of Midgar, ought to be able to defend herself - but Reno was right, she wasn't physically strong, and she needed a weapon. Not a gun, of course. He knew she'd never take one. It would have to be something that was not ostentatiously aggressive; something that didn't look like a weapon, but could be used as a weapon if the need arose.

A quick search through the Turks' arsenal produced exactly the kind of thing he had in mind: a guard stick with a single materia slot, lightweight but resilient, made of hollow titanium steel with wooden grips. He called Rosalind to his office, gave her the staff and the address of the martial arts school where Aerith was studying, and told her to make sure the master of the school understood he was to sell the staff to Aerith for a nominal price and instruct her in its use. Aerith was not to know where it came from. "Remind him that we're keeping an eye on things," Tseng concluded, "So he had better teach her well."

He was thinking that if events took a turn for the worse, as they well might in this unpredictable world, a time could come, perhaps quite soon, when he would no longer be around to protect her. He hoped to live a long time yet – for as long as he was needed. But it was wise to be prepared.

.

November seemed to go on forever. The first few days had been marked by high drama, as the electricity riots in the slums, and rumours of the reappearance of AVALANCHE, sparked off a world-wide security panic, its flames fanned by an over-excited media. Schools were closed and planes grounded, railway lines stopped running, and the Gold Saucer shut down for twenty-four hours. But nothing came of any of it. The riots petered out, Heidegger's army mopped up, the Turks dealt with the ringleaders, and the atmosphere below plate simmered back down to the usual sullen discontent. No more was seen or heard of AVALANCHE. On the twelfth of November Shinra announced that the terrorism threat had receded, and reduced the alert level at its reactors and offices from S-level to N-level.

And Veld, like a fish whose scales catch the sunlight only for a moment, had flicked his tail and vanished back into the shadows. Tseng prayed he would stay there.

The Turks were chasing a cold trail. Tseng had sent his teams to hunt in all the places where naturally occurring materia was most likely to be found, yet they hadn't encountered a single Raven. Either AVALANCHE knew something the Turks didn't (which was, Tseng acknowledged, more than likely) or else their numbers were severely diminished. How many operatives remained? Fuhito of course, Mr. Avalanche himself, whose destructive ambitions had evolved, if Bugenhagen was to be believed, beyond single reactors, or even the Shinra Corporation, to embrace all living things; and Elfe, the human time bomb, who might or not not be Veld's daughter, might or might not be staying with Fuhito of her own free will, might or might not be carrying fused to her flesh a summons more powerful than any Tseng had yet heard of (he wasn't completely convinced about this)… Shear, it seemed, had joined forces with the Commander. Was there anyone else? Did Fuhito still have a army of any kind? A lab? Was he still making Ravens? Did AVALANCHE even outnumber the Turks any more?

Tseng was always conscious of Scarlet and Heidegger watching him, watching his Turks, watching and waiting like two cats outside a mousehole, alert for any sign of weakness. The lack of results was therefore doubly frustrating: frustrating in its own right, because after seven years the mission to put an end to AVALANCHE was still not accomplished, and frustrating Tseng's objective of getting the department back into the Old Man's good books. The Turks needed to have something to show for their efforts, soon.

.

One night, about ten days after Tseng sent the staff to Aerith, Rufus broke the silence hanging over the chessboard to say, "What do you make of these latest rumours?"

Tseng hesitated for a moment before replying, wondering if this was going to turn out to be another of the Vice-President's elaborate verbal traps. Every since their conversation about Scarlet and AVALANCHE, when Rufus had taken umbrage at having his loyalty questioned, it had become almost impossible to talk to him seriously. His attitude was flippant and cynical; he evaded, ignored, or mocked every attempt Tseng made to initiate a meaningful discussion about his own and the company's future. Clearly he was nursing some grievance – he was making that abundantly plain – but whatever it was, he wasn't prepared to come right out and say it, and Tseng was beginning to lose patience with him.

"What rumours?" he asked. There were always so many.

"About Angeal Hewley. Apparently he's been seen flying around all over the place."

Oh, yes, those rumours. Tseng had first got wind of them about a month ago. He'd instructed Rosalind to investigate, and she'd come to the conclusion that people were definitely seeing _something_, though their descriptions of what they had seen varied wildly.

"How did you hear about that?" he asked Rufus.

The blue eyes rolled. "Tseng, who hasn't heard about it? It's in today's paper. A fangirl spotted him preening his feathers somewhere down in Mideel. But to be honest, I read it first in the executive memoranda three weeks ago."

Tseng refrained from passing comment. He itched to say, _well, I'm glad to hear you're keeping up with what the Board's doing; maybe it matters to you more than you like to pretend, hm?_ but he knew that to say it out loud would only provoke a snide remark. When it became obvious that he wasn't going to say anything, Rufus chuckled and went on, "Of course, it can't really be Angeal. You saw Zack Fair kill him, didn't you?"

"I think people's imaginations are running away with them," Tseng replied.

"Tys told me Rosalind thought it might be an albino griffin, or perhaps some new mutation of gargoyle that hasn't been catalogued yet."

"Or a clone – " Tseng regretted the words even as they were leaving his mouth. Rufus was on them in an instant. "Like the one in Aerith's church?" he suggested.

Tseng's hackles reflexively rose. It disturbed him to hear Rufus dropping Aerith's name in that casual fashion, as if they were friends and knew each other; as if he'd last seen her yesterday, rather than when he was five years old – and Rufus was doing it more and more, having evidently decided it was the quickest way to get under Tseng's skin. To discourage him, one had to fail to rise to the bait. So Tseng replied with a mildness he was far from feeling, "Yes, I suppose it could be."

Rufus's soft snort carried a hint of disappointment. "Hunh. Well… whatever it is, it sounds like it's giving my old man conniptions. He must think all his evil deeds are coming back to haunt him. Does he get you to check under the bed every night, Tseng, before he and Scarlet jump into it together for another helping of steaming hot rumpy-pumpy?"

"They're not sleeping together. I've told you that before."

Rufus gave a doubting smile. His eyes strayed back to the chessboard. "Yes, you have," he agreed, "But what I have to ask myself is whether you'd know if they were. You're not actually very good at reading people's feelings, are you?" He leaned forward as he said this and advanced a pawn two squares. Then he sat back, looking pleased with himself, and went on, "Not that it makes any difference to me. As far as I'm concerned my father can screw anyone he likes. He's been screwing everyone around him for as long as I can remember; it would hardly be reasonable to expect him to stop now. So…. Are you going to make a move, Tseng, or what?"

.

On the 8th of December Mink came back from Bone Village empty-handed. A week later Skeeter and Aviva returned, having spent almost a month combing the environs of Fort Condor with nothing to show for their efforts. Tseng took a cloth and wiped their names from the mission chart. His whiteboard was beginning to look very blank. They were nearly out of options.

The next day, however, was a red-letter day, bringing both an opportunity, and an information breakthrough.

Tseng was sitting at his desk eating a working lunch (the sandwiches came down on a trolley from the cafeteria; it had been either the corned beef and sauerkraut or the chocobo-mayo) while he read through the latest mission order to land on his desk from the executive floor. The Old Man wanted two Turks to accompany a dozen of Hojo's technicians and a platoon of soldiers on a trip to Nibelheim, to bring back a 'valuable specimen' (heavily underlined) to Midgar. Tseng would have wondered if this meant Zack, had he not, regrettably, already seen the specimen in question, that headless, undead _thing_ in the reactor that Hojo had called Jenova, as if it needed a name; as if it were a person. He'd only caught a glimpse of it before Hojo had slammed the door shut, but that fleeting impression of mottled purple skin and bloody tubes had been enough to make a Turk's flesh creep. And now it was coming to Midgar.

_Hojo had better keep it __very__ well contained_, Tseng resolved, _because if it ever gets out, I will take great pleasure in pushing it into the incinerator myself - _

His thoughts were interrupted by Skeeter, who came slamming into his office shouting, "Sir! Quick!" and without waiting for a reply turned and bolted back down the corridor towards the materia room. Tseng dropped his reuben sandwich and ran after him.

Aviva sat crouched on the floor of the materia room, her head bent over her cupped hands. Beside her lay a velvet-lined drawer that had been yanked from its runners with such force that the handle was hanging loose.

"Veev," said Tseng very softly, "What are you doing?"

She lifted her face. Her eyes were huge.

"I know what this is," she told him, and stretched out her hands to show him the mysterious, colour-shifting materia.

"I think she's just remembered," Skeeter added helpfully. "It came to her all of a sudden, like."

"Is that right, Veev? What have you remembered? Can you tell me?"

"It was Shears. He put it in my pocket. I remember it all now. It was just before we fell. He thought the Ravens were going to kill him, and he told me that I had to look after it for Elfe, in case anything happened to him."

Tseng took the crystal sphere from the palm of her hand and held it up to the light. At its heart the tiny triangle was glowing like the filament of a mako light bulb. "So this _is_ what we've been looking for?" he asked her.

"Yes. I think so."

"This is just so mind-blowingly awesome," Skeeter exclaimed. "To think that we had one all the time. Veev, you are amazing. Don't you think she's amazing, sir? This is all we needed! Now that we know what they look like, we'll have no problem finding the other three."

Always the optimist, Skeeter.

Tseng thanked them, told them to fix the drawer and replace the materia, and then returned to his office and stood by the window for a while, deep in thought. Having his hunch about the mystery materia confirmed was less of a help than Skeeter supposed, because even though the Turks had not been sure what it was, they had all known what it looked like, and if they had come across another like it in their missions they would have brought it home. Such an unusual materia couldn't easily be overlooked. Which meant that the remaining three were almost certainly not in any of the obvious places. They had searched all the obvious places - except one, which had, until today, been closed to them.

Chance had thrown the perfect opportunity their way. They needed to make the most of it. They were unlikely to get another.

Tseng was about to take a decision that would push him and his team over the invisible line; this was something he had been hoping to avoid, but he could no longer see any way around it. For weeks now it had been growing increasingly clear to him that in this business of the Commander's daughter – as in so many things to do with Shinra – the heart of the matter was to be found, not in Midgar or Junon, but in an apparently insignificant backwater on the other side of the world.

The time had come to bite the bullet. Tseng just had to hope it wouldn't blow up in all their faces.

He called Rude and Rosalind to his office and gave them their orders. They were to accompany the science department team to Nibelheim, where, if luck was on their side, they would be allowed to go into the mansion. If luck was not on their side, however, then they would have to find or create an opportunity to break in. Once inside, they were to make a discrete but thorough search, focusing on the library and any relevant records; they should identify items of interest, photograph anything they could not carry away, and if they were caught in the act, lie.

Tseng did not mention Commander Veld, and Rude and Rosalind did not bring his name up either, though all three of them were well aware that the likelihood of encountering him in the vicinity of Nibelheim was quite high. He sought what they were seeking, and must have worked out by now, as Tseng had, where it was most likely to be found. Tseng wanted to believe that their Commander would stop short of putting his Turks in an impossible position – but the fact was, Veld had already shown himself prepared to stop at nothing in his determination to rescue his child. He'd turned his back on his boys and girls, walked out on them in mid-fight, and partnered up with their enemy, Shears, the man who had murdered Natalya. That, for Tseng, was the deepest cut of all: the knowledge that their Commander had willingly made common cause with a man who had their blood on his hands. Given these facts, there could be little doubt that if Roz and Rude managed to find the thing they were all looking for, Veld would use every means at his disposal to wrest it from them.

Would they be able to kill the man who had made them, if the need or the opportunity arose? Would Veld expect them to try? Tseng could have simplified matters for them by issuing a direct order. They would obey their Director, though they might hate him for it afterwards. Or at least, they would try to obey…. But what if when the time came to pull the trigger, they found they could not? Who then would be to blame for having put them in an impossible position? And what right had he to issue an order that he, himself, was not sure he was capable of carrying out?

This was not a choice he could make for them. Their own consciences must determine their actions. Whatever they decided, and whatever the fallout from those choices might be, he would defend them and take the blame upon his own shoulders; that was what a Chief Turk was for. In return, however, he had a favour to ask them.

"Rosalind… Rude…."

They had been waiting attentively for him to speak. "Yes, sir?" said Rosalind.

"While you're there, there is one other matter I want you to resolve – "

"Zack," said Rude at once.

_So I am not the only one who thinks of him_, Tseng realized, and immediately wondered why he had ever presumed he was. "His suffering has gone on long enough. I want you to end it."

"You think he's still _alive_?" Rosalind cried in disbelief. "I mean – yes, I know he was incredibly tough, but even so – it's been so long, sir. And even if… What if he… What if we don't – _recognize _him?"

"Kill everything. Anything that looks like it might once have been human. Put them all out of their misery. It's what we should have done in the first place."

Rude rasped something that sounded like "No survivors."

"If we need to, we'll blame it on AVALANCHE," said Tseng.

"Understood," said Rosalind. "You can rely on us."

.

_Three days later. PHS transcript, 19__th__ December, 2006, 1 a.m._

_Rude: Boss – _

_Tseng: Rude? What's happening? Are you all right? Are you in?_

_Rude: Not yet. There's been a - unexpected development._

*static*

_Tseng: I thought so. It's like a hornet's nest up in Science right now. What's happened?_

_Rude: Couple of experimental samples escaped._

_Tseng: Could you repeat that?_

_Rude: Two lab specimens. They broke out. There's been some fighting._

*static*

_Tseng: What kind of fighting?_

_Rude: SOLDIER fighting, Boss. Body count's pretty high. The specimen's got Angeal's sword._

*static*

_Tseng: Are you serious?_

_Rude: Yup._

*static*

_Tseng: Rude – _

*static*static*static*

_Tseng: Rude, is he still – human?_

_Rude: [hoarse chuckle] Human as hell and pissed as fuck, Boss. Man, you should have heard him yelling. Hang on – _

*static*

_Rude: Roz says do you want to change our orders?_

_Tseng: Put her on._

_Rosalind: It's Roz here, sir. What are your instructions?_

_Tseng: Let me think. Which way did he go?_

_Rosalind: South towards the lighthouse. The army's tailing them. The other guy who's with him is very sick. It's slowing him down._

_Tseng: I wonder…._

*static*

_Tseng: [briskly] Are you in a position to enter the mansion now?_

_Rosalind: That's an affirmative, sir._

_Tseng: Then carry on with your mission. Take advantage of the confusion to do what you need to do. I'll deal with this other matter..._

_._

Tseng shut the phone with a snap and let his hands fall onto his lap.

Still human….

How was that possible, after more than three years in Hojo's lab? What miracle had protected him? Aerith's prayers?

_No_, his conscience replied, _it's simpler than that. Zack was his own protection. Because you cannot make a monster out of a man unless there was something monstrous in him to begin with._

But how had he managed to escape? No one had ever escaped from Hojo's clutches before. And how had he got Angeal's sword? Had the science department minions grown careless? Had the guards fallen asleep? Or had somebody helped him? Tseng's thoughts flew first to the Commander – but to do such a thing would be out of Veld's character. He did not meddle in the internal workings of the other departments, and he would have said that Zack Fair's fate was none of his business. Commander Veld was not a man who did anything out of mere compassion.

Though he had, once, rescued a child…

_But not to make me in his image_, Tseng reminded himself. _That wasn't what he wanted for me - and it's not what I want, either…_

Another possibility suddenly occurred to him. What if it was this Angeal creature people spoke of seeing that had helped Zack to escape? What if he was wrong, and the rumours were right, and it really was Angeal –

_For god's sake, get a grip_, he ordered himself. There were some things that were simply not possible. Not even Hojo had succeeded in bringing a dead man back to life. The dead stayed dead. They had to. The whole world was predicated on that fundamental truth. Otherwise, what was there to stop anyone – even Sephiroth –

_ Stop it! Be practical. Don't feel. Think._

The army was hunting Zack down while he, the Director of the Turks, sat here brooding. If they caught Zack, they would kill him, or, worse, drag him back into captivity. Was he, Tseng, prepared to let that happen?

Only a couple of days ago he'd been willing to put himself and his Turks on the line to set Zack free – though it had, admittedly, been a different kind of freedom he was thinking of.

His own freedom, to be honest.

Damn Zack! How could such a simple man make everything so complicated? He was like a goddamn train smash, throwing everyone off their rails. As if the Turks didn't have enough on their plate already, with Veld and AVALANCHE and Scarlet and Rufus. And what about Aerith? Zack's escape was bound to upset the status quo there, and might very well cost her the illusory freedom that Tseng had worked so hard to secure for her. If the Board decided that Zack on the loose posed a threat to their Cetra, Tseng would probably be ordered to take her into protective custody –

_Speaking of orders, _he suddenly realized, _why hasn't the President called me?_

Well, that one was easy. Scarlet was calling the shots, and Scarlet had no love for the Turks.

_On the other hand_, Tseng reflected, _nobody has forbidden me to act, yet._

Perhaps Scarlet was not quite as clever as she imagined.

Time was slipping through his fingers. If he was going to do something, he needed to do it fast.

Doing nothing was an option, of course. Turks had always been good at that. Should Tseng choose the sin of omission? Let the army take his problem off his hands, as he had once let Hojo, and look the other way - again?

His job was to protect the company – but what was a company, if it was not the men who served it? Zack Fair had been a faithful servant of Shinra. He had always obeyed his orders, even when they went against his grain. He had sacrificed his own life to stop Sephiroth. Zack Fair had done his duty. And Shinra had rewarded him by trying to make him a monster.

If Tseng let it happen a second time, how could he still call himself a man?

Commander Veld, when offered a shot at redemption, hadn't waited to form a plan of action; impulsively he'd thrown everything aside to grab for it with both hands. Tseng was, by nature, a little more cautious. As it happened, however, the immediate solution to his current Zack problem was close at hand. Hadn't he once told Rufus that he didn't believe in coincidence? He'd had the answer in the back of his mind all along, on stand-by, so to speak; he'd known from the moment he saw that phone number and realized whose name was on the paper that he would call her sooner or later. He'd merely been waiting for the right opportunity to present itself.

Tseng opened his phone and pressed a sequence of keys. The phone at the other end rang and rang and then – "Hullo?"

"Don't hang up," he said.

The long silence that followed was broken finally by her laughter, a low throaty sound. "I'd know that voice anywhere. Hey, Boss. How's it going?"

He hadn't forgiven her; he would never forgive her, yet still her laugh had the old effect on him, like a finger of sunshine tickling his heart. For a moment he couldn't speak. Then he pulled himself together and said:

"I have a mission for you, Cissnei. If you're interested…."


	36. We're Not Traitors

_Sorry to all for the long delay. I've had this written for ages, but could not think of a title. In the end I had to settle for something straightforward. _

_Because it's been a while, I thought I should briefly sum up what happened in the previous couple of episodes for anyone who feels the need._

_Commander Veld, having abandoned the Turks to search for his long-lost daughter Felicia, or Elfe, is still under sentence of death. Rufus is still being held in isolation in the Turks' surveillance room as punishment for funding AVALANCHE. Aviva is still hopelessly in love with Reno. _

_After three years of silence, Commander Veld and AVALANCHE reappeared in Cosmo Canyon. Veld, Fuhito, and the Turks are all searching for the support materia which will enable the activation of the summons materia embedded in the hand of Veld's daughter. The strange materia that was taken from Aviva's pocket after she fell into the mako at Corel has turned out to be one of the four support materia they seek, and Bugenhagen has told Tseng that the summons it supports was originally found at Nibelheim by a dead Turk named Valentine. While looking for more information, Tseng stumbled across Cissnei's telephone number, hidden in Veld's desk. Hojo has continued to refuse to allow any Turks into the Nibelheim mansion; however, when he decided to send a team of his scientists to bring Jenova to Midgar, President Shinra ordered that two Turks go with them. Tseng sent Rude and Rosalind with instructions to break into the mansion and see what they could find. He also told them to kill Zack, and thus end his suffering. However, Zack broke out and escaped with Cloud. Rude and Rosalind took advantage of the ensuing chaos to search the mansion, while Tseng made a phone-call to the long-lost Cissnei, and offered her a new mission..._

_

* * *

_

**CHAPTER 36: WE'RE NOT TRAITORS. BUT -  
**_**In which Cissnei's debriefing doesn't go smoothly, Tseng offers the Turks a choice, and Reno tries to explain what his job means to him**_

_**

* * *

**_

By the time Tseng finished briefing Cissnei it was nearly two a.m., that small hour when the veil between this world and the next becomes almost transparent: when those close to death slip into the current of the lifestream, and sleepers surrender to dreams. Far away, many floors above his head, lights were blazing and angry men and women were shouting accusations and making demands, but here on the Turks' floor all was quiet, and he had nothing left to do but wait. Once again, it seemed, he had come to a turning point in his life, and once again he was alone, listening to the clock tick, wondering when his phone would ring and who would be on the other end of the line when it did.

He heard a slight click; it was the timer turning the ventilation fans back on. The building came to life, breathing through its shafts long hissing exhalations of dry air that chilled his skin. The faraway throb of the reactors sounded to Tseng like a heartbeat, and for a moment he had the fanciful sensation of being trapped inside a behemoth that had swallowed him whole.

All at once he could not bear to be alone with his thoughts another minute. Without thinking too hard about it, he allowed his feet to carry him along the passageways and down the steps to the one place in the Turks' domain where he knew he would find a fellow human being at this dark hour. Quietly he opened the door and slipped through, immediately feeling the slight difference in temperature: the air in here had been warmed several degrees by Rufus' body heat. Tseng felt around for the dimmer switch, found it, and turned it up just a little, just enough to see.

Curled on his side in the four-poster bed, with the covers pulled up to his ears, Rufus twitched as the light came on, but did not wake. The cat that lay drowsing by his feet opened its eyes at Tseng's soft-footed approach, yawned mightily, and stretched its claws. With one hand Tseng pushed back the silk brocade bedcurtain and stood for a moment looking down on the sleeper. Rufus' hair was a splash of pale gold against the snowy pillow; his lashes quivered with each breath, and his stubbled cheeks were flushed like a child's.

_If only he could always be like this_, thought Tseng wryly. _Caring for__ him would be a piece of cake._

Releasing the curtain, he moved away from the bed and sat in Rufus' armchair, resting his brow against the padded headrest. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that the cat was still watching him. In the dim light its pupils were huge, matt black, its irises shining like two yellow crescent moons. It twitched its tail a couple of times, and then, with an air of smug, ineffable wisdom that put Tseng in mind of Bugenhagen, it closed its eyes and began to purr.

Tseng shut his own eyes, allowing the peace to enfold him.

.

In his dreams he heard the ringing of church bells, and then felt someone shaking him.

"Get off me," he snarled, his tongue thick with sleep.

"My watchdog's catnapping," said Rufus, sounding amused. Tseng forced his eyes open. His prisoner was standing over him, dressed in white silk pajamas, his hair tousled as if he had just got out of bed. "You need to wake up, Tseng," he said. "Something's happened. A woman called for you not long ago. She sounded a little wrought up."

Tseng realized that Rufus was holding his phone.

"She woke me up, actually," Rufus went on. "I think she thought I was you. Oh, and by the way - "

The shrill ringing of Tseng's phone interrupted him.

"Right on cue," Rufus laughed softly. "Maybe it's her." He flipped it open and put it to his ear.

"Give me that," said Tseng, holding out his hand.

"You have reached the offices of the Department of Administrative Research. Hullo? No, hold on a minute." Rufus passed the phone over, saying, as he did so, "It _is_ her. Her voice sounds familiar, but I just can't place it.

Tseng put the phone to his ear. "Speak."

"Boss?" Cissnei's voice was high-pitched, strained. "Is that you?"

"Yes, it's me."

"Who was that other man?"

Tseng glanced up at Rufus, who had perched himself on the arm of Tseng's chair and was listening attentively; at this close range he could hear her every word. Tseng shifted the phone to his other ear and said, "That's not important. Give me your status report."

"Did you know – " Her voice quivered, broke; she took a breath, and pressed on, "Did you know who you were sending me after?"

"The target's identity hadn't been confirmed – "

"Fuck that. Fuck _you_, Tseng – don't you realise I thought he was _dead_? The Chief _told_ me he was dead!"

"I had surmised that, yes."

Cissnei made a furious hissing sound. "So if you knew, then why… I mean, what the _hell_ is this? More punishment? Or – or - some sick kind of test? Is that what you're doing? Are you testing me?"

Rufus bent closer, so close that his hot breath blew softly across Tseng's cheek. For a moment, the briefest fraction of a moment, it felt good to have another human being close to him; it was as if he were being offered an extra shoulder to lean on. Then the old claustrophobia reasserted itself like a band tightening round his chest. With a twist of his body Tseng sprang up out of the chair and moved away, restoring the proper distance between himself and his prisoner. As he did so, he realized that the black bootlace he used to keep his hair tied back had worked itself loose while he slept; his hair was swinging in a heavy sheet around his shoulders, and he had to toss his head to get it out of his face.

Rufus, laughing silently, slid down into the warm seat Tseng had just vacated.

"Tseng?"" cried Cissnei. "Are you still there? Don't you go silent on me, you bastard!"

"Have you apprehended the target?"

"You know I fucking haven't."

Relief flooded his being. He'd tossed a coin and it had come up heads, just as he had gambled it would.

To Cissnei he said, "Why not? I gave you explicit orders – "

"He overpowered me, took my bike, and escaped. OK?

_So you gave him the bike, did you? Good girl. I knew I could count on you. _

"I'm terminating this mission," he told her. "Text me your coordinates and I'll arrange for you to be collected ."

"No."

"What?"

"I said no, Tseng. I've made up my mind. I'm going into the mansion – "

"No!" he exclaimed. "Don't do that."

If she went into the mansion she would run into Rosalind and Rude… and she would see things that were better left to the imagination –

"Don't you understand?" she cried. "I _have_ to. I have to know. Thinking he was dead was bad enough, but to find out that all this time… God, it's like a living nightmare. The little guy he's got with him has mako poisoning so bad he doesn't look like he's going to make it – but Zack wouldn't even _think_ of leaving him behind. They were in there together, he said. And he – he said – he wouldn't tell - " Her voice broke on a sob. "Tseng, what did that freak Hojo _do_ to them in there?"

"You don't want to know. Don't think about it - "

"_You_ maybe able to do that. I can't. I still have a heart, even if you don't."

"No – listen to me. Your orders – "

She had already hung up.

"Staff giving you trouble?" asked Rufus.

In the heat of the moment Tseng had almost forgotten Rufus was there. "No… Nothing like that," he replied automatically, and even as the words were leaving his mouth he wondered why he bothered to deny it.

"Hmmm," was all Rufus said. Getting to his feet, he crossed to his night table, poured a glass of cold water from the thermos flask, and held it out, saying, "Your throat sounds a bit dry."

This simple act of thoughtfulness from such an unexpected quarter tightened Tseng's chest to the point where he was momentarily unable to speak. Rufus brought the water to him; he took it, sipped it gratefully, managed a "Thank you."

How strange it felt to be taken care of. That was usually his job.

Rufus removed the empty glass from his hand and said, "By the way, if you don't mind my asking – what _are_ you doing here?"

Good question. For a moment or two, Tseng was unable to remember. Then it came back to him. "I couldn't sleep."

"You could have fooled me. When I woke up you were so fast asleep that – "

Once again the ringing of Tseng's phone cut Rufus off. He answered it briefly, "Yes? – Yes, sir. That is correct. Yes, I will. Fifteen minutes. Understood," and shut it again.

"They never leave you alone, do they?" said Rufus. "You look exhausted. You could always get into my bed. I'm up now, anyway. I'll draw the curtains and tell anyone who comes looking for you that you're not here."

"I have to see your father."

"Ah. Then you'll need this -" Turning away, Rufus went over to the armchair, picked up Tseng's leather bootlace, and gave it to him. Tseng used his fingers to comb back his hair and tie it into its customary ponytail. Rufus stood and watched.

"I know who your target is," he said when Tseng had finished.

Tseng gave him a doubtful look. _Did_ he know, or was he fishing?

"S-level access, remember?" Rufus explained. "After that woman woke me up with her phone call, I took a look at the executive memoranda from last night – or I suppose I should say this morning. Apparently Zack Fair killed six troopers while escaping from custody and wounded several dozen more. In the minutes Hojo describes him as a 'failed experiment', but from the sound of things he's more of a killing machine than ever. Scarlet's sent half the army after him. But the funny thing is, I can't find any record of anyone sending out the Turks." Rufus leaned forward. Lowering his voice conspiratorially, he said, "You went after him on your own initiative, didn't you?"

"Our standing order to protect the company's interests dictated my actions," Tseng stiffly replied.

"Yes, of course." Rufus laughed. "Shinra can't go on bringing these dead people back to life. If word got out, we'd never be able to keep up with the demand. Unfortunately for you, though, he seems to have made good his escape. Which leaves you with a problem. Doesn't it?" He smiled. "Tseng, what _are_ you going to tell Aerith?"

.

_23rd December, 2006_

At precisely 15.57 hours Skeeter and Reno entered a cobbled back alley on the outskirts of Sector 8. The two Turks moved at a brisk pace, glancing over their shoulders to make sure that they weren't being followed. Sharp winds funneled up the alley behind them, whirling through the detritus of discarded sweet wrappers, cigarette butts and crumpled betting slips. A sheet of newspaper wrapped itself around Skeeter's leg; he stopped to kick it loose. Ahead of them loomed the steep concrete wall that formed the lip of the plate. To their right, a red and gold Shinra postbox stood under a filigreed iron street-lamp.

"Down here," said Reno, pointing at a flight of steps descending to a basement entrance. There was a light burning over the door. He led the way, and rapped four times on the brass door-knocker. A very pretty dark-haired girl, wearing an apron around her waist, opened the door and smiled at them. Reno looked past her, peering down the shadowed hallway, his left hand hovering close to his EMR. Skeeter gave her his most charming grin. She closed the door behind them, and without saying a word led them along a narrow passage, opened a door, and gestured with her head for them to go inside.

The small room they entered was lit by a couple of old-fashioned gas lamps set in sconces on the wall. By this sepia-tinted light they could see four wingback chairs arranged around a low table, on which stood a cut crystal decanter and four sherry glasses. Tseng was sitting in one of the chairs, and the Legendary Turk in another. The remaining two chairs were waiting to be occupied.

"You found us," said Tseng. "Good. Come sit down."

"Drink?" Charlie asked them.

"If you're buying," said Reno.

Charlie unstoppered the decanter and leaned forward to pour a stream of liquid gold into the glasses. To Reno's nose it smelt like candy – rum'n'raisin fudge, maybe. Sherry wasn't really his cup of tea any more than cigars were, but a free drink was a free drink. He lifted the glass to his lips and took a sip.

Tseng's hands rested quietly on the arms of his chair. His fingers did not worry at the nap of the upholstery, as Skeeter's were doing, or patter a random beat like Reno's. They simply… waited. Tseng never made a motion that was not necessary. This quality of absolute stillness he possessed had always been one of the things Reno envied and admired most about him – the other being, of course, that voice, like a knife sheathed in velvet.

Tseng said, "You both know, I take it, that Roz and Rude encountered Commander Veld while they were in Nibelheim?"

"Yeah, they said." Reno narrowed his eyes at Tseng. "Be honest, Boss. Did you know he was there?"

Charlie cut in, "None of us have had any contact with Veld since the day he left – "

"I wasn't asking you."

Tseng raised a hand for them both to stop. "There was always a strong possibility that he would show up; I knew that. But I didn't coordinate it with him, Reno, if that's what you've been thinking. I don't know his plans. I'm not in communication with him."

"Does the Board believe that?"

"I cannot help what the Board believes. They know that Rosalind and Rude were in Nibelheim at the President's request. The coincidental break-out of the two test subjects – "

"_Was _it coincidental?" Reno interrupted again.

"Yes. As it happens. "

"To serendipity," smiled Charlie, raising his glass.

Tseng went on, "As I was saying, when the test subjects broke loose, I ordered Roz and Rude to go into the mansion to ensure that any sensitive data was secure. Protecting corporate confidentiality _is_ our primary imperative, after all. As I explained to the President, it was while they were carrying out these orders that they surprised the former head of this department in the act of stealing a certain high-security item belonging to the science department. They immediately tried to arrest him. He fought them off, and then AVALANCHE attacked, took the item in question and made off before anyone could stop them. The former head of this department used materia to incapacitate Roz and Rude, and then followed AVALANCHE. A squad of soldiers was redeployed to pursue him, but, regrettably, he escaped."

Tseng paused.

Skeeter had taken up his sherry glass while Tseng was speaking; now he threw his head back and tossed the contents down his throat in a single gulp. A look of pain crossed Charlie's face.

"So…. " said Reno to Tseng, "That's the story?"

"That's the story," Tseng replied.

"Sounds plausible."

"Definitely more plausible than the truth," remarked Charlie.

"Which is?"

"Not _entirely_ different," said Tseng. "I sent Roz and Rude to Nibelheim with orders to break into the library. Zack's escape created the ideal diversion. When they reached the basement they found the Commander had got there ahead of them. He'd been waiting for an opportunity as well. Together they searched the mansion and found another one of the support materia – "

Skeeter's gold tooth flashed in a grin. "That's freakin' awesome. Two down, two to go!"

"Not quite. As I said, Fuhito has it now."

"Oh, so that bit was true?"

"Yes," said Tseng patiently. "The Ravens held Roz and Rude and Commander Veld off while Fuhito escaped. The noise of the fighting drew a couple of troopers to the spot, so the Commander stunned Roz and Rude, to make it look as if they'd been been fighting _him,_ and then he went off after Fuhito. The troopers chased him, but he gave them the slip pretty quickly – "

Skeeter cheered, "Dude, the Chief still rocks!"

"Have another drink, my friend," smiled Charlie.

He refilled the three empty glasses. Tseng had not touched his. Skeeter knocked it back and said, "Wow, this is good stuff, Ledge. But Boss, you haven't told us yet what the story is with the dude in the coffin."

Tseng frowned. "What do you know about that?"

"Roz says they went into a crypt full of coffins and found this guy sleeping in one of them, and the Chief _knows_ him, she said. And they woke him up and he told them where to find the materia. Roz says the Chief said they used to work together when they were young, but how can that be possible? Roz said he didn't look any older than me."

Tseng was silent. Charlie looked thoughtful. Reno said nothing; he was busy wrestling with his own memories of the basement at Nibelheim: the dank walls, the smells of earth and decay and mako mingling with Cissnei's perfume; the ironbound door, the lifted latch, the beam of Cissnei's torch shining on a coffin lid; the touch of her hand on his…

And a long-lost Turk sleeping like the dead not three metres from them.

"I suspect," said Tseng, "That officially he's K.I.A.. Not that it matters. Whoever he is, he seems to have shut himself up out of choice, and we should show our gratitude for his help by respecting that."

"But he must have been in there for, like, decades," Skeeter pressed on, reluctant to let the fascinating subject drop. "Roz said his hair was all matted down to his waist and his fingernails were like claws and – "

"Roz said too much," Tseng cut him short. "I didn't call you here to speculate on the identity of the man in the coffin. If he ever worked for Shinra, he doesn't any more, and what he chooses to do with himself is none of our business. We need to talk about the Commander."

He paused, taking a moment to study each of their faces. "Commander Veld is under sentence of death. That hasn't changed. Our orders are to shoot him on sight. None of us can say that we don't know this. Strictly speaking, Roz and Rude are guilty of a very severe dereliction of duty, and that throws suspicion on us all – "

But it was the _Chief!" _cried Skeeter. "You can't expect them to shoot the _Chief! _You don't really want us to _kill_ him, do you, Boss?"

Tseng answered very slowly, as if taking time to make sure each word was precisely correct, "The Old Man has to believe that I'm prepared to do it. Otherwise, we are _all_ finished."

Slowly, a slit of a grin began to cut across Reno's face. Skeeter still looked bewildered.

"When we joined this company," Tseng went on, "We swore an oath that we would put the welfare of the Shinra Corporation above every other consideration, even our own lives. That primary imperative overrides any other order we may receive. Even an order from the President."

He allowed a little silence, to let this sink in.

"Oh, Boss," breathed Reno, his voice pitched low and full of admiration. "You are one fucking _fantastically _weasly bastard."

Charlie laughed out loud, and gave Reno a look of appreciation.

A faint smile had wormed its way onto Tseng's lips. He forced it down, and went on, "Since our job is to protect this company, part of that job must surely be to protect its President from the consequences of his own bad decisions. Commander Veld poses no thread to Shinra. He has served this company faithfully all his life, at the cost of great personal sacrifice, and even with the sentence of death hanging over his head he continues to work to bring down our enemies. Killing him would be detrimental to the company's interests. I have therefore come to the conclusion that our true duty is to assist him in any way we can – to find the support materia, to rescue Felicia, and to stop Fuhito before he does any more harm either to Shinra or the people of this planet. I intend to do everything in my power to help the Commander and keep him alive. And the Legend's with me."

Charlie took up the thread. "It won't be easy. The Old Man's furious that Roz and Rude let the Chief get away. Scarlet and Heidegger are on the lookout for any opportunity to stick the knife in. We have to assume we're under constant surveillance."

"We can't afford to put a foot wrong," said Tseng. "If we screw this up, our lives are probably forfeit."

Reno snorted. "So what else is new?"

Despite Tseng's daunting words, a surge of optimism charged the atmosphere of their little gas-lit room. Reno's hair positively bristled with energy. Skeeter's pale blue eyes shone.

"You're under no obligation," Tseng went on, looking from Skeeter to Reno and back to Skeeter again. "I can't order anyone to follow me in going against the Board. If you prefer, you can walk away now. Quit the Turks. Leave Shinra. Leave Midgar. I won't come after you. But before you choose, be very clear about one thing. Your choice is final. If you choose to throw in your lot with Charlie and me, I expect one hundred per cent commitment. If you choose to leave, there's no coming back. And if I ever saw you in Midgar again, I'd kill you. So. Skeeter, what do you say? In or out?"

Skeeter looked to Reno for guidance. Reno raised his eyebrows, and then turned his face away. This was a choice every man had to make for himself.

"The Chief saved my life," said Skeeter decisively. "I owe him one. I'm in."

"Reno?"

Reno jerked a thumb at his younger colleague. "The man said it. In, of course. Did you really need to ask?"

.

They sat together for a little longer, finishing the decanter. Then Charlie stood up, saying that he had promised to meet Aviva for drinks before dinner. He asked whether anyone else would like to come along. Skeeter said he would, and got out his phone to call round the rest of the team and see who else would join them.

"I need to get back to the office," said Tseng.

"I'll walk with you," Reno offered.

Ten minutes strolling at Tseng's measured pace brought them within sight of the theatre. Outside the Goblins Bar the landlord was smoothing chequered cloths over the tables in preparation for the evening rush. Across the road Les Marroniers was having a sale: big red signs with tall white letters crying _Prices Slashed! _and _Everything Must Go! _were plastered over the shop windows. As the two Turks rounded the corner into Loveless Avenue, Reno asked Tseng, "No one turned you down, did they?"

"I still need to talk to Roz and Rude, but I'm assuming that'll be a formality."

"When?"

"Later tonight. Rude wants me to meet them in a bar down in the Sector Seven slums. _Seventh Heaven_, it's called."

"Never heard of it," said Reno.

Tseng arched an amused eyebrow. "It must be brand new, then."

"Huh. Probably got some fat-arsed barmaid there he fancies."

They walked under the Clock Arch and into the crowds milling through Fountain Square. The hour had just struck six. From every building hungry, thirsty, tired workers came streaming towards the train stations and the bars. The two Turks were like a rock in this current of humanity. It parted before them, flowed around them, closed up in their wake. There was a time when the effect their suits produced had given Reno a thrill he'd thought would never grow old. Now, it barely registered.

"There's something I have to ask you," he said.

Tseng, who had been waiting for Reno to raise the subject, replied, "Go on."

"When Roz and Rude were in Nibelheim, they met somebody else they never thought they'd see again. Didn't they?"

Rude had told him, of course. "Yes," said Tseng.

"Did you send her there?"

"Yes, I did."

Reno kept his tone carefully neutral. "Because you knew she'd let him get away?"

"Officially, he overpowered her."

"Oh. Right. SOLDIER First Class. Gotcha."

They continued walking across the square and around the fountain. At the travel agency on the corner a young woman in a powder blue suit was putting a 'closed' sign on the door. The two Turks walked past her, heading down the lane that led to Sector Zero.

"I just have to know this one thing," said Reno at last. "Is she coming back to work here?"

Tseng stopped and turned to look at him. "What are you hoping I'll say?" They were standing in the cold shadow of the Shinra Building. Instead of giving Tseng an answer, Reno took a few steps back and craned his neck, lifting his eyes to the top of the tower. "It always looks like it's falling when you stand right under it like this," he said. "Hey, Boss - What d'you call those things you use to hold up houses that are falling down?"

"Buttresses?"

"Yeah, buttresses, that's it. You know, that's kind of like what we are, don't you think? I mean, this building's pretty rotten in places, but it's a roof over a lot of heads, isn't it? I'm not talking about bad eggs like you, and me, and the Board. I mean these nine-to-five stiffs with families and stuff. So we're like their buttresses. We hold that roof up over them. D'you see what I mean?"

Tseng coughed a laugh. "I've heard worse analogies."

"Yeah," Reno grinned. "A good one for the rookies, huh? And it just came to me on the spot there. D'you know how long I've been doing this job, Tseng?"

"Twelve years come February, isn't it?"

"Another three years and I'll be thirty, and I'll have spent half my life in this suit. And I'll probably die in it. There was a time, you know, a while back, when I used to think a lot about what I'd have done with my life if I wasn't a Turk. And then after the Chief ran out on us I was pretty fucking pissed at him for a long time, not just for leaving us in the lurch like that, but for dragging me into this life to begin with. But you know what I've come to realize?"

"What, Reno?"

"I was kidding myself. This life is the only life I could ever have had. If the Chief hadn't hauled me out of the slums when he did, I'd have got myself killed years ago. Even now this job is the only reason I have to get up in the morning. It's the one thing that stops me from living like an animal. What'll I eat today? Where will I get drunk today? Who will I fuck today? That's all my life would be. Am I making sense?"

"I think so. You mean this job gives your life a purpose."

Reno's lip curled. "When you put it that way you make me sound like Veev. I was thinking more like this job is what keeps me human. I don't have much that I believe in. Never did. I really don't get all that shit about ethics and morality and stuff that ties everybody all up in knots. I mean -" he showed his teeth fleetingly "- I know it's wrong to take candy from babies and cut the whiskers off kittens. And obviously it's wrong to shoot innocent civilians," he added in a tone that managed to be both serious and full of mockery, as if he believed what he saying but had to laugh at himself for believing it. "The only time I'm ever sure I'm doing the right thing is when I'm obeying orders. And that suits me, because I like doing what I'm told. I could never do what you do, weighing up all the pros and cons and trying to work out what's the right thing to do. I wouldn't even know where to fucking start."

"Reno, what are you trying to say?"

"Oh, shit – look, I just wanted to say that I think what you did for Zack Fair was right. I'm sure it wasn't an easy decision to make, and it's going to cause us a shitload of hassle, we both know that, but it was still right. And what you're doing for the Chief is right. So whatever you decide to do with Ciss – that'll be all right with me too. I have faith in you, Boss."

Tseng's eyes widened. "You're – being sincere, aren't you?"

"Yeah. I am. The Chief knew what he was doing when he left you in charge. You've never steered us wrong yet. And now that I've answered your question, how about you answer mine?"

"Cissnei will not be coming back to Midgar," Tseng told him. "Or at least, not for the foreseeable future. The Commander assigned her a mission, and it isn't complete yet. I can't say for sure when it will be." He took a long look at Reno's face, and though he thought he knew the answer, he asked anyway, "Do you want to know where she is?"

"No," Reno answered without hesitation. "And if I ever lose my mind completely and try to make you tell me, just shoot me instead, OK? We're going to have enough trouble coming our way these next few months as it is. We can do without any more complications."

They had come to the front entrance. Shinra's employees – the ordinary nine-to-fivers, the good eggs - were spilling through the security gates and down the steps into the street. Tseng took Reno by the elbow and drew him aside.

"Speaking of complications," he said in Reno's ear, "I want Rufus out of our office. It's time to move him, as we discussed. I need you to do it tonight."

* * *

Thank you for reading and, I hope, enjoying.

Anyone know which book is being referenced by the signs in the Les Marroniers windows?


	37. Rufus, In Disguise And Out of It

_Dear readers, I won't be updating for a while, because I'll be travelling, so here's the next chapter. _

**CHAPTER 37: RUFUS, IN DISGUISE AND OUT OF IT  
****_In which Rufus gets his wish (or one of them, at least), Aviva tries to act positively, and suspicions are raised all round_**

**_

* * *

_**

Reno came into the surveillance room soon after eleven o'clock that night, carrying a Turk suit over his arm and holding a dark wig and a pair of sunglasses in his hands. Seeing him, Rufus said, "Ah," in a tone that managed to communicate both satisfaction and impatience, as if to ask, _what took you so long?_

"Get changed," said Reno, holding out the dark blue trousers and jacket, the white shirt, the grey tie.

"Where are we going?"

Without another word, Reno put the clothes into Rufus' hands. Rufus did not ask again. He changed swiftly, folding the various layers of his discarded white suit in a neat pile on the foot of his bed. The little cat wove itself around his ankles, twitching its tail anxiously.

Rufus took his time in front of the mirror, knotting and re-knotting the silk tie until it met his exacting standards. Reno, who was not in any hurry, lounged against the doorpost, making no effort to hide his amusement. "Like what you see, V.P.?"

"I had no idea your shirts were such good quality." Rufus ran a hand down the softness of his sleeve. Then he lifted the jacket from the bed, remarking, "It seems unusually heavy."

"It's the mythril in the weave. You get used to it."

"So they _are_ bullet-proof?"

"I wouldn't stake my life on it. Materia resistant, maybe, but that's about it."

Rufus put on the jacket, and turned from side to side to check both profiles in the mirror. "How do I look?"

"Like a rich kid on his way to a costume party. You gotta rough it up a little. Roll up the sleeves. Untuck the shirt. Make it look like you've been working in it. OK, now put on the wig and the shades."

Rufus did so, and was instantly transformed into someone almost unrecognizable.

"Heh," grinned Reno. "You'll do. All right, let's go." He gave Rufus a prod between the shoulder-blades with the butt of his rod – not a rough jab, more of a friendly nudge, the kind he might give to Skeeter, or Tys, or Veev, just to keep them in line. "C'mon, V.P., let's move it."

While Rufus was thus busy disguising himself, over in apartment 32 on Warehouse Street Aviva had torn off her very expensive pink satin halter dress, thrown it onto the floor, and flung herself face down on the bed dressed only in her white cotton knickers. Her case of knives lay open on the bed beside her.

Long gone were the Loveless posters and boy band pin-ups that had once brightened her walls; the first thing she'd done when she came home from hospital was tear them all down. Then she'd got a big cardboard box, stuffed her character plushies and moogle cushions into it, and shoved it out of sight under her bed. She was a woman now: she had to put away childish things.

At this exact moment she was thinking that maybe tomorrow she should take her box of toys down to one of the company's orphanages in the slums. There was no point in hanging on to it any longer. She'd have to travel light from now on; they all would. Mr. Tseng had said they were all going to have to move out from whichever addresses they had on file in H.R., because those records made it too easy for their enemies (Director Scarlet, and that hairy slug Heidegger) to catch them sleeping. And they were going to have to keep on moving, because nowhere would be safe for long –

But Aviva didn't want to look that far into the future. The prospects were too grim. They _had_ to save the Commander – she hadn't hesitated for a moment when Mr Tseng put the question to her, and she'd say yes all over again if he asked her now – but, oh God, what if she lost _this _lifein consequence? What if that was the debt she had to pay, a life for a life: the life the Chief had given her, in return for his? Shinra was every good thing that had ever happened to her. Could she really find the strength to give it up? She hadn't forgotten what it was like out there, beyond the bright lights of Midgar's reactors and the warmth of Shinra Inc.'s embrace.

Her fingers closed around one of the knife handles and gripped it tightly. Part of her mind was protesting that it wasn't _fair_, but such objections were also childish things. She'd had some good years, wonderful years, better than anything she had dared to hope for during her days of debt-bondage in Corel. Millions of people never got to have as much as she'd been blessed with. She should be grateful –

_I'm sick of being grateful_, she thought, hurling the knife at the dartboard opposite. The force of a lifetime's pent-up rage was in that throw: her knife flew true and fast and lodged itself, quivering, in the bull's-eye.

_God,_ she thought viciously, _I wish that dartboard was her __face__…_

Had her fellow Turks been in some sort of conspiracy against her tonight? Because it sure felt like it. First of all Skeeter had come along for drinks when she was expecting to have Charlie to herself, and then Tys and Hunter had shown up, one five minutes after the other, faking surprise at seeing each other when it was totally obvious that they'd just got out of being in bed together –

(And what was up with that, anyway? Why was Mr Tseng playing deaf and blind? The moment the two of them had come back from Cosmo Canyon it was obvious what was happening between them. Everybody was talking about it. Just the other day Cavour had said, "Well, if you look at it one way Tys has done us all a favour. She's been a whole lot nicer to work with since he started giving her some," and Reno had replied, "Yeah, thank God somebody's finally found a good use for that big mouth of hers," and Aviva had felt guilty for giggling, because it wasn't really a laughing matter. She didn't even want to _think_ about how ugly the inevitable bust-up was going to be. Nobody needed that kind of drama right now. Frankly, she thought Tys and Hunter were being totally unprofessional and self-indulgent, and Mr Tseng ought to get them into line, like the real Commander would have done.)

- and then what else did they all have to start gossiping about but today's hottest topic of conversation: the return from the dead of The Evil One….

Not that Aviva had really believed Reno, not for a minute. Things that sounded too good to be true, usually weren't. She'd put off double-checking with Rude, because… well, because she'd been afraid to open that can of worms, afraid that Rude might ask _who told you that? _ Or, worse: _Veev, is something the matter?_ The way she was feeling these days, she was in danger of spilling her guts all over anyone who showed her the tiniest shred of sympathy.

She'd come _this close_ to it tonight, with Charlie. Tys, Skeeter and Hunter had been gossiping away about That Woman and whether she was going to come back to Midgar and how Reno would take it if she did, when all of a sudden Charlie had said to her, "It's late; you must be hungry. Let's go eat," and hurried her off to their usual restaurant with an attentiveness that made her uneasy – like he was more worried about her feelings than she had given him any reason to be.

The suspicion had been growing in Aviva for some time now that Charlie knew. All those hours he'd spent sitting by her bedside in the nursing home, when she'd probably been talking in her sleep… It made her squirm inside just thinking about what he might have heard. And for months now, ever since she'd woken up, he'd been nagging her to get a transfer and come work with him in Junon. Tonight he had raised the topic again. Right after they'd ordered and the waitress had taken their menus he'd stared talking about how dangerous things were going to get in Midgar soon, and how crucial it was to the success of Mr Tseng's plan that the second string of Turks in the Junon office appear untainted by any hint of insubordination -

"Did Mr Tseng say he wants to get rid of me?" she demanded. "Does he think I'm not up to the job any more? Is that it?"

"Aviva…" Charlie laid his hand over hers. "Of course not. But I think it would be better for you to put some space between yourself and this town."

"Do you think I'd just run away and leave everyone else to face the danger? For God's sake, Charlie! I'd die for Commander Veld. We all would!"

"Sssh, keep your voice down." He glanced around. "I think it would be better for you to leave Midgar for all sorts of reasons. You could do with a change of scene. Meet some new people – "

"I don't _want_ new people!"

"Yes," said Charlie gently, "I know."

Panic rose in her then. All it needed was another word or two, a little more kindness on his part, and the truth would come pouring out of her; she'd be helpless to stop it. Escape was her only hope. Pushing back her chair, she had shouted something embarrassingly childish like "Stop trying to run my life for me," and had fled from the restaurant, kicking off her high heels and running blindly through the streets until her feet found their own way home.

_Home_. Such a sweet word.

This little studio was her home. Shinra was home.

But not for much longer.

On a sudden impulse, she slid to the floor, reached under the bed, and dragged the box of toys into the light. Thrusting her hand in, she rummaged around until she found, right at the bottom, her favourite velveteen tonberry. _This one I'll keep_, she promised herself, clutching it tight against her chest. _Just one. To remind me of what it felt like to be fifteen, when I woke up every morning knowing I was the luckiest girl in the world._

_ Now, I just want to kill something. _

Which was, on second thoughts, not such a bad idea. Getting up and doing something had to better than lying here feeling sorry for herself. Killing things was her job, after all. And Midgar was never short of monsters. Jumping up from the bed, Aviva threw on her suit, adding her materia bracer and her hip holsters as well as her knives, and put a small flashlight into her breast pocket. She would go down inside the plate, she decided – there were always bugs in there, and if she was lucky she might find a chitin or one of the claws. She hated those monstrosities even more than she hated sahagin. If she could make the world a slightly better place tonight by eliminating a couple of devil claws, then maybe her evening would not longer feel like such a complete disaster.

It was only just past midnight; the night was young. The pavement cafes and bars of Sector Eight were crowded with customers. A party atmosphere prevailed. Aviva strode boldly along Loveless Avenue, enjoying the looks her suit drew and the sensation of being someone important, a Turk on a mission. Whatever else might change, that pleasure, surely, would never grow stale.

All at once she heard a voice that made her dart for cover into the nearest doorway. It was Charlie… and it sounded like he was just around the corner, talking to somebody. Crouching close to the ground, Aviva inched forward, holding her breath so as to hear better. Charlie's voice was deep; she couldn't quite make out what he was saying.

Now the other person spoke. It was a woman, and her voice sounded very familiar, though it took Aviva a couple of moments to realize that it was, in fact, her colleague Mink.

That two Turks should bump into each other on the streets of Sector Eight and stop to chat was not surprising, and yet… There was something in the way they spoke to each other, something in their tone (because Aviva still could not make out the words) that suggested this was more than a casual conversation. Aviva wiggled a little further forward, and peeked one eye around the corner.

Mink was in her suit. Charlie was still wearing his dinner jacket. She was nearly as tall as he was, and they were standing very close together, almost toe to toe, occupying each other's space in a way that strongly implied a longstanding knowledge of each other that neither of them had ever given Aviva any reason to suspect they shared.

Even as the stiletto of jealousy pierced Aviva's heart (completely unreasonably, since she did not love Charlie _in that way_ – but even so, dammit, she had thought _she_ was his special one), Mink bent down and picked up a suitcase that Aviva hadn't noticed before, and then the Legend leaned over, said something in Mink's ear, kissed her cheek (not _exactly_ like a lover, thought Aviva, but then again, how would she know?), turned on his heel and came walking so rapidly towards Aviva's hiding place that all she could do was close her eyes and freeze. He swept past without noticing her; she held her breath while his footsteps faded into the distance, then jumped to her feet and took another look round the corner. Mink was gone.

Puzzled, and more than a little angry, Aviva stared at the spot where Mink and Charlie had been standing only moments ago. What was going on between them? When had they got to know each other so well? And why had Charlie kept it a secret? What else hadn't he told her? In fact, now that she came to think of it, what _did_ she actually know of Charlie's life? Only what was common knowledge. He never talked about himself. The closest he ever got to it was telling her funny stories about office life in Junon.

Well, fine. If he had a right to his secrets, then so did she. He shouldn't go poking his nose into other people's private business unless he wanted the same done to him. After all, she'd never _asked_ him to adopt her. He'd just kind of waltzed into her life and kept trying to take it over, which really _was_ pretty goddamn arrogant of him, just like Reno always said…

And where was Mink off to with that suitcase? Was she moving out? Already?

"The Turks are out in force tonight," said a woman drinking a cocktail at a table nearby. The man across from her turned to look over his shoulder as he replied, "If there's going to be trouble, maybe we should head home."

Aviva followed their line of sight and saw Reno standing under the Clock Arch, accompanied by a tallish, dark-haired Turk whom she did not recognize. They were both facing in her direction. Reno held his rod in his left hand. He saw Aviva, and beckoned for her to come over. She walked towards them, eyeing up the strange Turk the whole time. There was something familiar about him, something in the way he carried himself which reminded her a little bit of Charlie's cool confidence, but even more of Mr Tseng's pantherish grace.

Reno was looking extremely pleased with himself, always a sign that some dodgy game was afoot. "Hey Veev," he said, "I didn't know you were on duty tonight. Wasn't your Sugar Daddy supposed to be buying you dinner?"

"That was earlier. Now I'm bug-hunting." She looked up at the strange Turk with unabashed curiosity. Though the sunglasses masked the top half of his face, she could have sworn she had seen that firm mouth and chin, and that delicately chiseled nose, somewhere before. "Hi there," she said. "Have we met? I'm sure I know you."

Reno's grin had widened to the point where it was threatening to split his face in two. "Don't stare, Veev, it's rude. He's our new recruit. I'm showing him round Sector Eight. Wanna come? We're going to the reactor."

"Sure. I was going there anyway."

"I wouldn't mind a drink first," said the strange Turk.

Aviva's jaw dropped. The smirk was instantly wiped from Reno's face; he slapped a gloved hand over her mouth and warned, "Don't blow the gaffe, Veev," before turning to Rufus with a hissed, "I said _no talking_."

"Ah yes, you did. You'll have to forgive me: this fresh air is going to my head."

Aviva tried to pull her face from Reno's grip, but he wasn't letting go. To Rufus he said, "Let's keep moving."

"You have your job to do, Reno; I understand that," Rufus replied. "And I appreciate that Tseng is anxiously awaiting confirmation from you that this mission has been successfully completed. But try to see it from my point of view, just for a moment. This is the first time I've been outside in over three years, and it will probably be the last for some time to come. Couldn't you let me have fifteen minutes?"

Aviva would have liked to speak, but Reno's fingers held her jaw clamped so tightly shut her teeth grated against each other . "I know what _you're_ going to say," he told her. "So don't you even open your mouth. Understood?"

She hesitated, then nodded. He released her, and she took a step backwards, rubbing at her bruised, tingling jaw.

He asked Rufus, "Why should I?"

"Because it would mean a lot to me, and it would make no difference to you."

Reno screwed his mouth to one side as he weighed these words. Then he said, "You have to promise not to try any funny business. Veev and I are both armed."

"When have I ever tried to get away?"

True enough; the two Turks acknowledged it with a shared glance. Reno said, "OK then. Fifteen minutes. We'll go to the Goblins."

"Sounds good to me," said Rufus.

The pub was only a short walk away. Reno headed for the front door, but Rufus hung back and said, "Let's stay outside."

Reno looked round. "There's nowhere to sit."

"This table is free, sir," said the landlord, appearing out of nowhere by Reno's side and gesturing at the table closest to them. "These people were just leaving. Weren't you?"

The couple looked up, saw the suits and jumped to their feet, grinning like frightened monkeys. "That's right, work day tomorrow, gotta hit the sack."

"Come again soon!" the landlord called after them. "Drinks on the house!" He swept the tablecloth, gathered up the empty glasses, and snapped his fingers for a waitress to bring an extra chair. "Now, gentlemen, young lady - what'll it be?"

"The usual," said Reno. Rufus and Aviva had already sat down. Reno folded himself into his chair, resting one foot on his knee; the other knee jutted out like a set square, a menace to passers-by. Aviva could see from the scowl on his face that he was already regretting his momentary impulse of – what? Generosity? Compassion? Or maybe he'd just felt like a drink. And now they'd drawn attention to themselves. People might remember; that couple, turfed off their table, would certainly remember. Not good.

The landlord returned with three ice-cold pints of Zolom XXX and a triple of neat whiskey. He set this down in front of Reno, who threw it back in one gulp and slouched deeper into his chair.

Rufus was sitting very upright, looking around, taking everything in. _Filling his eyes, _thought Aviva. He'd been staring at the same walls for three and a half years. She wondered what that must feel like. What was he feeling right now? Better? Worse? Didn't fifteen minutes of phoney freedom make the years _harder _to bear, not easier?

Did Rufus Shinra ever feel like he'd been left out? Like things were moving on and people were keeping secrets from him? Like he was running as hard as he could just to catch up?

_But if he does_, she reminded herself quickly, _it's his own fault._

Rufus released a heartfelt sigh. His eyes were trained on the Shinra Building. "So ugly," he remarked. "Isn't it? Do you know what it reminds me of? A gigantic pupating insect. I must say, I've never really understood the principle behind the design of this city. Why go to all the trouble of building a metropolis that looks like a flying saucer if you're then going to make its streets look like something out of the middle ages? If it had been left up to me, I'd have given the whole thing a more consistently futuristic ambience. Take those doors there – " he swept his hand wide, indicating the entire street – "They look antique, don't they? That's because they _are _antique. Reeve had whole teams scouring the planet, buying them up. Of course, we took a fair few from the old towns down below… Not to mention the bricks and the roof-tiles. Nothing beats that authentically weathered look. My father thinks he's built a wonder for the ages. What do you think, Aviva? Do_ you_ like Midgar?"

Aviva didn't want to answer. The marks left on her jaw by Reno's fingers felt like they were turning into bruises, and the skin of her lips was still tingling where he'd touched her. His scowl had deepened. She wished the Vice-President would be quiet.

When it became obvious that she was not going to say anything, Rufus went on, "If I could live wherever I liked, I'd choose Junon. _That's_ a town that doesn't pretend to be anything but what it is. And I've always liked the seaside. There's something magical about ports, don't you think?… the ships loading and unloading in the docks, the far horizons…. And the sunsets are spectacular down there. What about you, Aviva? Where would you choose to live? What's your favourite town? Or are you, perhaps, a country girl at heart?"

"Just drink your beer," said Reno, "And can the chit-chat. You've got five minutes left."

Rufus picked up his pint and sipped it. "What's Tseng doing tonight?" he asked.

"Work," Reno answered curtly.

"Does he still visit that girl in the church? The one who grows flowers? What was her name again? Edith – no, Ailish – "

"Aerith Gainsborough." It slipped from Aviva's tongue before she could stop herself. Reno gave her a dark look, and hunched his shoulders up higher.

"Gainsborough, that's it," Rufus smiled. "He used to have quite a soft spot for her, didn't he? But wasn't she dating that SOLDIER for a while – the one who was killed with Sephiroth in Nibelheim?"

A glance from Reno silenced any thoughts Aviva might have had about replying.

"That can't have been easy for her," Rufus went on. "She must have been so glad to have a rock like Tseng to lean on. Still, life goes on, and we all move on, don't we? I'm sure if anybody could console her, Tseng could. What do you think, Aviva? Has your Boss become more to her than a shoulder to cry on? Has he finally worked up the courage to confess his – "

"Time's up," said Reno, pushing back his chair. Aviva immediately rose to her feet. Rufus remained sitting. "I haven't finished my drink," he objected.

Reno's rod lay across his shoulder. "I don't want to knock you unconscious, V.P.," he said, "Because we've still got a way to go, and you're pretty heavy, and I don't want to have to carry you there. But I will do it, if I hear one more word from you. Now let's get moving." He gave Rufus another shove in the back, rougher this time.

Aviva led the way; Reno brought up the rear, with Rufus sandwiched between them. Rufus did not speak again until they came within sight of the reactor, its double doors guarded by four of Heidegger's Public Safety grunts. Seeing them, he halted, and put up his hand like a child in a classroom.

"What is it?" Reno sighed.

"Is this wise? Those troopers won't stop you entering, but if they're questioned later, they'll remember. Don't you know another way in?"

Reno looked annoyed, but all the same he gave the problem some thought. Then he nodded. "This way," he said. He led them back across Loveless Avenue into a quieter residential neighbourhood, the streets becoming progressively narrower as he turned left, then right, then left, until he finally brought them into a cul-de-sac where a manhole was set among the cobblestones. Kneeling beside it, Reno swiped his keycard through the magnetic reader. The manhole hissed open. Aviva climbed down first, followed by Rufus, and then Reno, who pulled the cover shut behind them.

Halfway down the ladder Aviva paused for a moment, wanting to take stock of her surroundings. The harsh lighting did not penetrate very far into the darkness. She could hear the sound of clawed feet scurrying through the shadows, and water dripping – a leaky pipe, probably.

"Keep moving," said Reno.

At the bottom of the ladder was an open storm drain clogged with all manner of junk: black plastic bags full of household garbage; a rusty shopping trolley from Robson's; someone's discarded red velvet curtains; the mummified corpse of a chuse tank; a giant wooden cable spool big enough to be a family dining table, and dozens of neon-coloured shinrafoam takeaway cartons. On the other side of the storm drain stood a battered white melamine chest. Reno jumped over the channel and gave it a kick. The lid sprang open. He reached inside, lifted out a bronze bangle green with verdigris, and offered it to Aviva. She shook her head. He tossed the bangle onto the rubbish bags, then reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a black silk hood.

Rufus stiffened. "That's not necessary. Please."

"Sorry, V.P.. Boss' orders. But look on the bright side. You can take that wig off now. Veev, you'll have to lead him."

Aviva felt awkward, taking the Vice-President's hand in hers as if he were a little boy. His palm was cool and dry, his skin less soft than she'd expected. He had a firm grip, and yet… She could sense the reluctance in him, the dislike of being touched, and it awoke in her that old kneejerk instinct to apologise: "Sorry, sir. But I have to."

"It's all right," he said. "I'm intrigued now. Lead on."

The going was difficult. In places their path was strewn with garbage or rubble, and Rufus often lost his footing. Several times they encountered flocks of monsters, but none of any interest. Reno killed eight or nine, and Aviva, not to be outclassed, took out a dozen more. They climbed up and down ladders, picked their way across flimsy catwalks, slid through the inside of pipes, and once rode an elevator down three levels. After walking for about half an hour they had reached that point, midway between reactors, where something close to silence prevailed, when Reno said softly, "Get down."

Aviva pushed Rufus behind the nearest crate. Reno crouched behind another, about three metres away. She looked a question at him. _Something's following us_, he mouthed back.

She turned round and whispered these same words to the black hood. Rufus' answer came muffled, "Tell him to go look. But be careful."

A jerk of her head and a quick motion with her thumb was all she needed to convey this to Reno. He nodded and slipped away, losing himself almost at once in the shadows of the tunnel. Aviva and Rufus waited, breathing quietly, saying nothing.

From a little distance away came the sounds of a scuffle, and Reno's voice reverberated off the concrete walls: "What the hell are _you_ doing here? Come here, you – Oh, no you don't. How the fuck do you _do_ that? Hah, gotcha! Not as smart as we think we are, are we?"

He appeared out of the darkness holding something fluffy and orange at arm's length. It writhed in his grip, snarling. "Mr Rufus!" Aviva exclaimed. "Your cat's followed you here!"

"Bloody nuisance," said Reno. "I hope no one saw it."

"Give him to me," said Rufus inside the hood. Reno thrust the angry cat into his arms. Its tail was fluffed to twice its natural size; its ears lay flat against its head. Rufus stroked a hand along its spine, over and over, until the fur went down and the ears came up and it began to purr, rubbing its face against his hooded cheek. Rufus set it on the ground. "He'll stay with us now. Let's go," he said, holding out his hand for Aviva to help him up.

Aviva hadn't been down to the bunker for months, but when they finally reached it she recognized the entrance from the coded arrangement of crates and barrels standing in the corner. Reno pushed on one of the wall panels; it slid open to reveal a short passageway leading to a second door, which was unlocked. Reno opened it, and stood back while Aviva guided Rufus inside.

The interior of the bunker was about as homely as a concrete box could be when it was buried deep inside a metal maze, lacked windows, and had been furnished almost entirely from cast-offs. The front room contained three sofas standing at right angles to each other on a large rectangle of speckled blue carpet, a remnant of the redecorating that had recently taken place in the City Planning Department. One of the sofas was upholstered in purple tartan, one had a pattern of kittens and pink roses, and one was covered in threadbare moss-green suedette. Aviva led the Vice President to the purple sofa, which looked the least saggy of the three, and helped him sit down. The little cat jumped into his lap.

"I sense that we have reached the end of our adventure," said Rufus. "Could I be allowed to take this hood off now?"

"Sure, knock yourself out," said Reno.

The knot gave Rufus trouble. Aviva went to help him. She'd just managed to get it over his head when Mink came walking in from one of the bedrooms. Aviva started in surprise, but the other two seemed to have been expecting her. Mink said to Rufus, "I'm still unpacking your things, sir."

Well, that explained the suitcase.

"Could I have a glass of water?" Rufus asked Aviva. She went into the kitchen, hunted through the cupboards for a glass, blew the dust out, filled it, put down a bowl of water for the cat, and returned to the sitting room. Mink was no longer there. Rufus had made himself comfortable on the sofa and was reading yesterday's Midgar edition of the Wutai _Leviathan_, which he had picked up off the coffee table. Reno was over by the pinball machine that stood against the far wall, feeling in his pockets for some change. Aviva handed him two five-gil pieces, and went in search of Mink.

The bedroom looked as stark as an army barracks. Two sets of narrow metal-framed bunkbeds with shinrafoam mattresses stood side by side on a floor of grey linoleum; there was a row of lockers against the back wall, and more of the white melamine storage chests standing either side of each bed. Only one of the bunks was made up. Aviva's first thought was, _he's not going to like this._

Mink was standing with her back to the doorway, putting one of Rufus' suits on a wooden coathanger and hanging it up in the locker. This was Aviva's chance. How should she open the subject? Should she get straight to the point? _Mink, how do you know Charlie? _Or give the question some context? _Mink, guess what? I saw you on the street with Charlie tonight and it looks like you guys know each other pretty well. So what's the story? _Or make it sound as if she were merely teasing? _Hey, Mink, what's up with you and the Legend, huh? Why so secretive, nudge nudge wink wink…_

Mink turned round. "Hi," she smiled. Mink's smile was much warmer than it used to be; in fact, seeing her smile at all was a big improvement on the old days. "Can I help you?" she asked. "Do you need something?"

_I thought I did_, Aviva realized, _but maybe I don't. _

Mink had always been beautiful – and so tall; Aviva had envied her that. But she hadn't known, until she saw Mink smile, that the older woman could look pretty.

_I thought you were just a hard person. But I was wrong. You were unhappy, weren't you? I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't see it before._

_ Oh Mink, does Charlie make you happy?_

"Veev? Are you OK?"

_You're so lucky –_

"Hey, wake up!" Mink waved a hand in front of Aviva's face.

Aviva blinked. "Yes – um, bathroom?"

"Through the office, on the left, next to the other bedroom."

"Oh, right, yeah. I forgot."

The bathroom was a riot of potluck colour: teal sink, peach toilet, bathtub a peculiar shade of grassy gold that had gone out of fashion before Aviva was born, making her wonder how something so old had found its way into upper Midgar in the first place. But everything was scrubbed clean and smelled of the piney air freshener that Rosalind (she presumed it was Roz, because it was the sort of thing Roz would do) had installed inside the toilet bowl.

She returned to the sitting room. Rufus was still absorbed in yesterday's paper. The cat on his lap was so fast asleep that its pink mouth hung slightly open, like a human commuter nodding off on a late-night train. Reno was working the pinball for all he was worth, shifting from foot to foot, fingers tapping madly, eyes glued to the silver ball as it ricocheted from paddle to cushion and up and over the bridge. Bells rang; lights flashed. His quick reflexes made him a superlative pinball player (sign of a misspent youth, he liked to say, as if anyone had ever suspected him of spending it any other way). With all the bonus balls he won, he could make five gil last half an hour.

Pushing off her shoes, Aviva curled into a corner of the floral sofa, tucking her feet up, and laid her head down on the frayed upholstery. They couldn't leave the Vice-President alone here, so she supposed they'd be spending the night. She'd slept in worse places. Hard places. Cold and lonely places. Some people might find it impossible to sleep with that racket from the pinball machine ringing in their ears, but she liked it. She liked hearing Reno curse, slam its sides, and crow with delight as the score racked up. He was happy, or at least he was having fun, which was almost as good. The sound of Reno's laughter filled her with the sense that all was right with the world. Stupid, she knew – but that was how it was.

Aviva was just slipping into that comfortable state halfway between wakefulness and dreams, when she heard Mink's voice say as if from far away, "You really should get going now," and then Reno exclaiming, "Yesssssss! High score! You beauty!"

"Before they go, can I ask something?" said Rufus.

Aviva opened her eyes.

Rufus had set aside his newspaper and was looking at Mink, who was standing in the doorway to the bedroom. He turned his head to include Reno. Then he turned back to Mink, and said, "Am I allowed to know why I've been moved here?"

Mink left the answering to Reno, who patted the pinball lovingly before turning around to say, "No can do, V.P. It's classified. Sorry."

"Classified? Classified by whom?" And before any of them could react to this unexpected question, Rufus went on smoothly, "Not, I think, by my father. I don't believe he has any idea that you've taken me out of the building. What's more, I would be extremely surprised to find he authorized the construction of this little hidey-hole. I doubt he even knows it exists."

Reno opened his mouth. No sound came out.

Mink tried to say, "The President instructed us – " but was cut short by Rufus waving a hand impatiently. "Don't waste my time with lies, please. There's no need, and it insults my intelligence. It's obvious that you've brought me here to hide me, and my guess is that you're hiding me from him. Or possibly Scarlet. Or both, perhaps? Why? To protect me….Or to negotiate? Am I your hostage now, Reno? Is that the current state of play?"

The three Turks said nothing. They were carefully avoiding each other's eyes. Even a glance, if intercepted, could give too much away. For Rufus was clever: they all knew that.

"No," said Rufus. "Not hostage. _Leverage_ – that's the word I'm looking for." He sounded as if the thought pleased him. "Leverage against my father. Tseng's finally made up his mind. He's decided his loyalty lies with Veld, hasn't he? And you're all in it with him, of course. One for all and all for one, et cetera. And my old man can't do a damned thing about it as long as you have me."

Rufus smiled. It was a charming smile, full of warmth, irresistible; Aviva's felt her own lips twitching, and fought down the impulse to smile back.

He went on, "Well, I'm pleasantly surprised, I must say. I was honestly beginning to doubt whether Tseng had it in him. But there's a flaw in your plan, you know."

Aviva looked at Reno. He glanced at Mink. She shook her head. He looked back at Aviva, who was biting her lip.

"Fuck it," he muttered. "All right, V.P. What's the flaw?"

"Its success depends on keeping me alive."

There was a brief pause. "And…?" said Reno.

"I really don't think you've thought this through properly. Suppose I decided to walk out of here right now. How would you stop me? Shoot me?"

"Knock you out and tie you up," said Reno.

"You can try. But you should remember that, thanks to the training schedule you've made me follow these last few years, I'm in excellent shape physically, and I have naturally fast reflexes. I think I'd fancy my chances against any of you – especially if I took you by surprise and knocked you over the head with a lamp, or some such thing. Sooner or later the opportunity is bound to present itself."

"You'd never find your way back to the surface."

"All I'd need do is follow the sound of the reactors. Eventually I'd find a way out. " Rufus paused. "It seems to me that your choice is this. Either you work on the assumption that I'm not here voluntarily, which means that you will have to keep me chained up, or permanently in Sleep status, or something similar, for as long as it takes Tseng to fulfill his vow of filial piety – and speaking as the man who will one day sign your paycheques, I can tell you frankly that I won't take kindly to such treatment – or…."

Rufus allowed the alternative to hang unspoken in the air.

"Or what?" said Reno, who liked to have things spelt out for him.

"Or you can count me in."

Once again Reno and Mink exchanged glances. Up until this moment both of them had been giving the impression that they didn't expect this conversation to last long. Reno had remained standing by the pinball machine, and Mink had hovered in the bedroom doorway, seemingly impatient to go and do something else. Now, though, it looked as if the conversation might not be as brief as they'd anticipated. After a moment's hesitation, Reno walked over to the floral sofa and sat down beside Aviva, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees. Mink took up her stance behind them, her hands in her pockets, her weight thrown onto one hip. Three pairs of eyes, the turquoise, the reddish-brown, the dusky black, searched Rufus' face .

"What is it exactly that you want, V.P.?" asked Reno.

"Your trust," Rufus answered.

Reno snorted, "_Trust?_" in the same moment that Mink exclaimed, "You want us to _trust_ you?"

"Yes," said Rufus. His voice was calm enough, but the colour was burning in his cheeks. "I realize it's a lot to ask."

"Trust isn't something you can ask for," Mink replied. "It has to be earned."

"I understand that. And I have tried to earn your trust. Surely you must see that if I'd chosen to I could have walked away from my punishment at any time? If my father had known what you were doing to me he wouldn't have left me in your charge another minute. I chose to stay, because I owed you and I knew it. Blood for blood. You've all seen me bleed. Every single one of you has my blood on his hands – except you, Aviva, but your proxies took your pound of flesh for you, I can assure you of that. And I submitted to it. Didn't I? I cooperated with you every step of the way. I have surrendered myself entirely to you. What more is left for me to give to prove to you that I'm sincere? If you can think of something, tell me."

Rufus fell silent. He looked, thought Aviva, as if there was much more he would have liked to say, but knew it was better not to.

Reno said, "Look, you gotta understand, V.P., we've got nothing against your Old Man. This isn't an uprising, or whatever it was you were hoping for. We're loyal to the company. It's just – "

"You're not one of us," Mink blurted, looking as surprised as anyone else at the words that had come from her mouth.

The spots of colour darkened on Rufus' cheeks. "Would you care to elaborate on that?" he said.

Everyone was staring at her. Mink breathed in. "Well… look at you, sir. You're wearing our suit, and you look like a million gil. Doesn't that tell you something?"

"I'm afraid I'm being unpardonably slow tonight. Please, enlighten me."

Mink threw a glance at the other two, inviting them to help her out. Reno, however, was sitting with his arms folded, waiting to hear what she had to say, and Aviva was gazing up at her with wide eyes, as if ready to hang on her every word.

Mink drew a deep, deep breath, and began:

"All right. It's like this, sir. For as long as I've been working here, you've been hanging around our department like… Well, like that cat there, looking for a home. I can see the appeal. Growing up the way you did must have been pretty lonely. So you put on that suit and it's like fulfilling a childhood dream, and you're happy because you can pretend to yourself that you belong to us at last. And I think you could easily go on deceiving yourself that you were one of us for as long as our ends coincided with yours - but the moment push comes to shove, I think you'd remember who you really are. I think you could sell us out, or watch us die, without a qualm, if it got you what you wanted. Though maybe not Tseng. I think you do truly care about what happens to him." Mink paused, but Rufus gave no sign of wanting to take her up on anything she had said, and after a moment she went on, "Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not trying to criticize you, sir. I think probably you need to be completely ruthless in order to run an empire like this. You can't afford to owe anything to anyone. That's the way it has to be. We understand that."

Again she hesitated, but nobody said anything. Their eyes remained fixed on hers, waiting for the rest. She took another deep breath. "It's not that we don't respect you, sir. I think I speak for everyone when I say that. No one could say that you haven't earned our respect. You've tried hard to wipe the slate clean. You're a lot tougher than we thought you'd be. You're persuasive and incredibly resourceful. And you're smart – in fact you're so smart it's odd you don't realize how it's these very qualities we respect in you that make it impossible for us to trust you. Don't you see that if we trusted you the way you're asking us to, we'd be fools? And what use would fools be to you?"

She was finished, but her gaze remained locked with his. Rufus had turned very pale. It was several moments before he found his voice. "I see," he said stiffly. "You've become quite articulate, Mink, haven't you? When you first joined us, you hardly uttered a word. I remember."

"People change, sir."

"Of course they do… Though I, apparently, cannot. Aviva – " His blue eyes were cold now, and shuttered, hiding his thoughts from them – "What about you? Do you agree with Mink?"

Aviva's tongue felt two sizes too big for her mouth as she cast about for an adequate reply. "I – I – I… It's hard to say, sir, because I was out of things for so long. I guess… It's always easier to forgive than to forget. But I'm loyal to Shinra, sir. And I take my orders from Mr Tseng."

"Look, V.P.," Reno cut in, "You can talk at us about this till you're blue in the face, but the bottom line is, we're not paid to trust you. When that day comes, then you can count on me."

"You mean the way my father counts on Tseng?"

It took several moments for the full implication of Rufus' question to sink in. Aviva felt her stomach churn; Mink clenched her fists, and Reno said hotly, "I told you, we're not traitors."

"Now who's deceiving themselves?"

"Shut up. It's not like that - "

"When a servant of this company sets his own judgement above a direct order given to him by the President, what else can one call it?"

Out of the corner of her eye Aviva saw Mink lay a hand on Reno's shoulder, ready to hold him down should the need arise. Aviva put her own hand on his arm: the muscles were like taut wires under his skin. Was it anger he felt? Fear? Aviva was feeling both. And punching the Vice-President in the mouth wouldn't help any, because the awful thing was, he was _right…_

Yet Reno held his voice steady as he replied, "I've told you before, Rufus. Don't you start trying to drive a wedge between us. And don't you ever, ever question Tseng's judgement in front of me again, or I swear, I will ram my rod so far down your throat it will come out your gold-plated arse. Do I make myself plain?"

"Your loyalty to your Director is laudable," Rufus replied without turning a hair. "But, Reno, haven't you learnt yet that uttering threats you can't follow through on merely makes you look weak? You can't touch me. Those days are behind us. You need me now. If you can't see that, then you _are _fools. You have set your feet on the road to disaster – "

_Oh God,_ thought Aviva_, yes, that's exactly what I'm afraid of…._

" – And I am the only one who can save you. Eventually, Tseng will realize that. And therefore it follows that the real question is not whether you can trust me, but whether I can trust you."

Aviva felt Reno's fingers close around her wrist. "C'mon," he said, jerking her to her feet. "I'm not listening to any more of this. He'll have us thinking black's white next."

Rufus smiled, but this time he injected neither charm or warmth into it. "You flatter me."

Aviva hastily felt around with her feet for her shoes. "You gonna be all right here?" Reno asked Mink. She shrugged her shoulders, as if to say, _Yeah, I can manage. _ He turned back to Rufus. "V.P., if you think you got something you want to negotiate, talk to Tseng's face, not behind his back."

"Tell him to come see me," Rufus replied.

It was worded like an order. It should have sounded like an order, and yet… Aviva could have sworn she detected a note of doubtfulness, or maybe hopefulness: an unspoken _please_.

.

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_As always, thanks for reading, and, I hope, enjoying. If you'd like to review, don't be shy; reviews are lovely._


	38. Poison

**CHAPTER 38: POISON  
**_**In which a mission provokes dissent, Rosalind worries about her sister, and Tseng pays the price of allowing himself to be distracted**_

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"He was asking for you again yesterday," said Rosalind to Tseng a fortnight later. She had arrived early for the morning's meeting, and had found Tseng working alone in the briefing room, his head bent over his notebook, the glow from his open laptop casting blue highlights on his sleek black hair. A stack of half a dozen mission folders sat on the table in front of him.

"I've been busy," Tseng replied, not looking up.

He had expected to miss Rufus' company – and he did feel a sense of loss, a vacancy; the evenings, when time hung heavy on his hands, were the worst – but at the same time, now that the Vice-President had been removed from his space it was as if a weight had been taken off his chest that he hadn't realized was there. He could breathe freely again, and his concentration had improved.

"He really wants to talk to you," Rosalind insisted.

"I don't have time for his games right now."

Tseng had been fully briefed on Rufus' conversation with the three Turks: Reno and Aviva had come straight back from the bunker to fill him in. Hearing it once would have been sufficient, but he'd had to listen to the whole story again from Mink the next day. He hadn't felt disappointed (he was past that stage); he hadn't even felt any anger at Rufus' blatant attempt to suborn his staff. All he'd felt had been an immense weariness. Rufus would never change; it had been naïve to hope that he could.

Rosalind said, "He asked me to tell you that if you don't go down there to see him, he's going to come up here to see you."

"More of his nonsense. Make sure you keep the doors locked."

"We do. But he can pick them."

Tseng's head jerked up. "What?"

"He showed me himself. He seemed quite proud of it. Apparently Skeeter taught him. About three months ago, he said. On the door to the cooler room," Roz sighed. "I don't know _what _Skeet was thinking of."

Their conversation was cut short by the entrance of Hunter, her thick honey-coloured hair pulled back in its customary high ponytail, her hazel eyes shining. She sat down in the chair at the other end of the table, said good morning, and yawned deeply. The others began to trickle in: first Cavour, then Mink, followed by Aviva, and Rude and Skeeter together, and Reno with a cigarette tucked behind his ear, and finally Tys, his cinnamon spikes of hair still wet from the shower. He took the empty seat on Tseng's left.

Tys and Hunter carefully avoided looking at each other, but the current of heat that flowed between them was almost palpable. Tseng wondered if he had made a mistake here by turning a blind eye. It was one of those affairs that could not possibly end well: Hunter was too self-centred, and Tys too volatile. She would eventually get bored and dump him; he, like nitroglycerine, would explode on impact, leaving his colleagues to scrape what was left of him off the walls. Tseng could see this coming as clearly as if it had happened already – which, in a sense, it had.

Veld would have seen to it that things never got that far. Tseng's own instinct was to stand back and let their passion for each other burnt out naturally, in its own good time. But time was too precious; he had little to spare. One more month was the best he could do. If nothing had changed by then, he'd have to send one of them away on a long assignment far from Midgar, to give them both a chance to cool off.

Closing his eyes for a moment, he focused on clearing his mind of all anxieties unrelated to the business at hand. Then he reached for the first mission folder, and began the morning's briefing.

The jobs on the table today were fairly routine. In less than half an hour, Tseng had worked his way down to the dossier at the bottom of the pile. At first glance the mission appeared to be a straightforward kidnapping, though its contextual details were more than usually sensitive. As part of Shinra's ongoing investment in the economic recovery of post-war Wutai, a factory had been constructed, right down on the remote southern cape of the western peninsula, for the manufacture of ordnance – specifically, ammunition cartridges for Scarlet's range of offensive autobots. To provide the labour for the production line, an orphanage had been attached to the factory under the supervision of Shinra's Social Welfare department. It currently housed just over three hundred Wutaian children, from new-born infants to teens.

On the other side of the planet, in Junon, a small but noisy group of philanthropists were demanding that Shinra close this orphanage down. Their protests were led by a widowed socialite in her thirties named Mrs. Kathleen Brand, who, according to the notes in the folder, had inherited from her late husband a successful chain of jeweller's shops with outlets in Junon, Kalm, and Midgar. The marriage had produced one child, a boy aged seven, currently at boarding school south of Costa del Sol.

Silencing the very vocal Mrs Brand would have been easy enough, but the Old Man wasn't asking his Turks to shut her up. Mrs Brand was popular and well-connected; people listened to her. The President wanted her to change her tune. He wanted to hear her singing the praises of Shinra's orphanage system, the food-for-work program, and the company's development policies in Wutai. He wanted to own this canary.

Their orders were to kidnap her son.

Mink had been sketching something on her notepad. "That's stupid," she muttered, as if to herself. The others turned to look at her, but her face was hidden behind the loose fall of her silver hair.

"I have you down for this," Tseng told her.

"It's not going to work. The Old Man's got no idea what it's like to be a mother. She'll tear this planet apart looking for her child. Any woman would -"

The pencil in her hand suddenly snapped.

Aviva broke in, "Her kid's seven years old and she's put him in a boarding school on the other side of the ocean?"

"It's a famous school," said Cavour "Very progressive. The Don sends his daughters there."

Mink ignored them. "Are we child-stealers now?" she asked Tseng. "Is that what we've become?"

"The age of the target is immaterial," said Tseng. "It's a routine kidnap. He'll be held somewhere secure while we talk to his mother – "

"Someplace secure? You mean like one of those godforsaken orphanages? When we all know that they _should_ be shut down – "

"Wait," Aviva again interrupted. "I don't understand. This kid's seven years old, and he's being brought up by strangers. So what are you saying, Mink? Are you saying it's fine for that rich kid, but not for the orphans?"

"What?" Mink turned to her. "You're making no sense, Veev."

"If we shut the orphanages down, like what you said, then what would happen to all those kids? I don't see anyone lining up to adopt them. Are you saying they should be thrown out onto the streets to fend for themselves?"

"Of course not!" Mink replied in astonishment. "But – "

"At least in the orphanages they get food and shelter, and a chance at some kind of education."

"An education! Six-year-olds on eight hour shifts, polishing the inside of gun casings with their bare hands – "

"So? They're making themselves useful. If you're not useful, you don't eat. That's life." Aviva rose to her feet as if to gain some vantage point on an imaginary podium. "And you know what else, Mink?"

Reno leaned over to murmur in Rude's ear, "Here she goes…"

" - I _hate_ people like this Mrs Brand. They're so fake. Patronising do-gooders, going round the planet looking for objects for their charity. Who the hell do they think they are? All this talk about caring, it's just a lie. People like her don't care about anything except making themselves look good and – and feeling good about themselves. If this woman cares so much about kids, why isn't her own kid living with her? If she has a problem with our orphanages then why doesn't she build her own orphanage and show us how it's done? She's got money. I bet her house in Junon is big enough to hold dozens of kids. So why doesn't she give them a home if she _cares_ about them? Instead of sending her own kid away? Why does everyone always leave everything to Shinra and then complain, complain, complain? They need to get off their fat arses and _do_ something if they care so much – "

"She's really on a roll now," Reno stage-whispered.

_You should get them under control_, said a voice in Tseng's head. Whose voice? Veld? Or perhaps Rufus – it had that tone. _You really shouldn't allow your underlings to debate company policy so freely._

"Don't be stupid," Mink was snapping at Aviva. "The Board would never shut down the orphanages."

"How can you be so sure? Those places cost money to run. They could find other workers. And you know what the Old Man's like about bad PR. "

"Then he should make the orphanages better!"

"Oh, wake up, Mink!" Aviva was standing as if braced for battle, chin up, shoulders back. "Life's tough. The sooner those kids get used to reality the better for them. Can't you see how much worse it is when these do-gooders come in and start raising all kinds of false hopes and making all sorts of promises, and then… I don't know what happens, they just get bored or forget or move on, and you're dropped like a hot potato -"

"Calm down," Rude rasped, laying a hand on her arm. "C'mon, Veev. It's OK. Just calm down."

She choked, "It just – it just makes me so _angry – _"

Inside Tseng's head the voice was saying, _You see what you've unleashed? All it takes is one act of disobedience, and next thing you know they're fighting among themselves and questioning every order…._

He let his hand fall onto the table. It wasn't a loud noise, but it was enough to draw everyone's attention. "Aviva," he said, "You're out of order. Go to the washroom and put some cold water on your face. I'll speak to you later. The rest of you are dismissed. Mink, you stay here."

The others picked up their things and left. Tseng used the time while they were leaving to straighten his papers. Mink sat rigid in her chair, staring at a spot on the wall behind Tseng's head.

When they were alone in the room he shut his laptop with a click, and looked down the table at her. She met his gaze unflinchingly. Her eyes were stones.

He said, "I still think about Mozo every day. Do you?"

His question took her by surprise. She blinked, and her expression became a fraction more friendly. "Every day," she admitted.

He allowed several moments to tick by, to emphasise his point, before he said, "This isn't the same thing."

"I agree. This mission is vindictive and petty and beneath us."

Tseng was not inclined to argue the point. However, what he said to her was, "We don't judge our orders, Mink, we just carry them out."

"That little kid's done nothing to Shinra."

"That's beside the point. At the risk of becoming repetitive, I think I need to remind you that you understood very clearly what our worked entailed when you joined this company."

"That's true, I did," she acknowledged. "But then I didn't care."

"Care about what?"

"Anything. Myself."

_Ah, yes_, he thought, leaning back in his chair, _that's what's different about her. It's something else I took too long to see. Rufus is right about me, I think. Damn him._

To Mink he said, "So, what happened?"

"To tell you the truth, sir, I'm not sure any more. A lot of things were made clear to me the day Mozo died. I think it was the same for all of us. Afterwards, I promised myself I'd find a way to make up for it - That if I was ever given another order I knew was wrong, I'd refuse, too. But now… I don't know. I'm not sure if that's how it was for him. It wasn't like he made a choice or… or took a stand deliberately. I think he just hit his wall. He just couldn't do what the Chief wanted. It wasn't in him. Because I can't steal that kid, Boss. You can put a gun to my head if you like. I just can't."

"I have no desire to put a gun to your head, Mink. You're too valuable a member of this team."

A rare smile touched her lips. Tseng, with his weakness for beauty, felt himself warm towards her. She said, "You probably don't remember, sir, but on the day I joined the company, that cat – Mr Rufus' cat – was here in the office. I said to Knox I was surprised we were allowed to keep pets. And Knox said, 'Oh, it works here. It kills rats just like we do.' That really struck a chord with me. I thought to myself, OK, rat extermination, that doesn't sound so bad. I can live with that."

"So you _did_ care?"

"Looking back, yeah, maybe more than I realized. And yes, it was dirty work sometimes, but I said to myself 'it has to be done, and better me than someone who gives a shit.' But there was always a good reason for what we did. That was the thing, Boss. At the end of the day, the benefits always outweighed the cost. So I could take pride in it, and that made me feel good. Good about myself. But these days…" She paused, and then went on more assertively, "Kidnapping this kid is a huge over-reaction. _And_ it'll probably backfire. Shutting Mrs Brand up won't change the fact that that orphanage is a disgrace. It won't silence the criticism, either. You know I'm right, Tseng, even if you can't admit it."

"I do admit it," he replied frankly. "That's not the point either. You are an intelligent woman, but you are overlooking a crucial piece of the puzzle. I don't believe these directives come from the Old Man alone. I think Scarlet is tightening our leash."

Mink hesitated. "You think she's testing our loyalty?"

"She doesn't believe we are loyal. I think she wants to goad us into open rebellion."

"Over this? Are you serious?"

"Well," he said, "It seems to be working."

That silenced her. She dropped her gaze to the table; Tseng could see she was thinking through what he had said. He let her have all the time she needed. It was several minutes before she looked up again and said, "I'm not trying to be difficult. I'm still committed to this job. I gave you my word that I'd help save the Chief and I intend to hold to that." She hesitated, and her eyes drifted away over his left shoulder as she went on, "Sir, I understand that we can't afford to do anything that might draw suspicion on us. I know we have to show the board that we're willing obey all our orders without question. But I also think we need to decide how far we're prepared to go. Is there anything we won't do to save Commander Veld? If we have to sacrifice ourselves, fair enough; that was always the deal anyway. But innocent kids?"

"We'll take each case as it comes. There's always a way. The child will not be harmed, Mink, I promise you."

"Not by me," she said firmly, "That's for sure."

"No. I can't send you on this mission now. I'm not confident you would be able to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. But there are going to be more missions like this, and I won't always have the luxury of being able to pull you off assignments you find personally distasteful. You should consider this a warning."

"Understood," Mink replied, and then added, "Thank you."

"Now, go and find Aviva. You'll be replacing her on her assignment with Cavs. Get her to brief you, and then send her to my office."

Mink nodded, rose, and left the room. He sat and watched her go, and when she was gone he continued to sit for a while, thinking about her. He had initially chosen her for this mission because her colleagues had reported that she had a way with children. Even Reno had noticed it. _So how did she lose her own kid?_ he wondered. For it was obvious to him now that she had had one, though she had never, in all the time he'd known her, spoken of it. She wasn't tearing the planet apart searching for it, so presumably it was dead. Most likely it had died years ago, before she'd joined the Turks. She must have been very young. Commander Veld would have known about the kid, of course. Probably it had been one of the reasons he'd hired her. Veld and his obsession with lost children….

Tseng went to his office, typed and printed out a letter giving permission for 'Miss Jenny Brand' to take her nephew out of school for a long weekend, and was just forging the signature when Aviva came in. He put the letter in an envelope and gave it to her. "There'll be transport waiting for you in Costa," he said. "Take the kid and go have fun at the Gold Saucer. Call me when you get there." Aviva left. Tseng buzzed Rosalind in and got her to make the phone call to the school, putting on her best upper-class Junon accent to impersonate the boy's mother. This, in turn, reminded him of something.

"How's your sister getting along at the Academy?" he asked her when she put down the receiver. "Still top of her class?"

"Naturally. She refuses to settle for anything less. I just wish she wasn't so _contrary. _ She's dropped the handgun as her specialty, just like that. Won't give a reason. Won't admit she _needs_ a reason."

"She's at that difficult age," said Tseng a little absent-mindedly. He had never met Rosalind's sister, and had really only inquired out of politeness.

"Difficult barely begins to cover it," Rosalind sighed. "She's so impulsive. And so competitive – I mean, competitive to the point of sheer recklessness. She complains that she hates being compared to me, but _she's_ the one who keeps measuring herself against my achievements. Last time I was down there she'd just beaten the Academy record I'd set for women's flyweight boxing, and she simply would not shut up about it. She nearly drove us crazy. I mean, I was happy for her – sheesh, it's not like I care about some school sports record I set more than a decade ago – but I really worry that it means more to her than it should…."

Tseng realized that he had inadvertently touched a nerve, one he didn't have time to deal with right now. "Rosalind, I have to go out – "

"I blame the Colonel. He pushed her so hard. He was forever telling her that no matter what she did she could never match up to me. To be fair, it was his way of motivating her. And even though he's dead now, she's internalized his voice. Of course I'm the last person she'll listen to. I wish _you_ could talk to Elena, sir. You might carry some weight with her."

"Yes, all right," he said. "You set it up – "

"You need to make her understand that I'm not deliberately casting her into my shadow. It's all in her mind. If she could let go of this one-sided sibling rivalry, she'd see that."

"I will," said Tseng. "Rosalind, I'm leaving the building now and I'll be gone for a few hours. I've routed my phone line through the switchboard. I want you to stay here and field my calls, and when Aviva calls, put her through to my cell."

"Roger, Boss. Where are you off to? Junon?"

"Eventually. I need to see Rufus first."

Rosalind grinned. "Good luck with that."

* * *

The monsters in the belly of the plate were multiplying. Tseng sighted more than thirty on his way to the bunker, including several species that were new to him. Being reluctant to fire his gun down here unless it was absolutely unavoidable, he skirted round most of them, but there were two which took him by a surprise. The first, a lone grashstrike separated from its flock, came blundering at him out of a ventilation shaft; the second, a cuahl-shaped blur of purple and red, leapt from the shadows as he rounded the final corner leading to the bunker. He killed both of them using that quietest of materia, ice. When the second one was dead he took a moment to kneel beside it and examine it more closely. He had no idea what it was. Its back was ridged like a dragon's, and its teeth resembled the jaws of a steel man-trap. He took a photo with his PHS for future reference, waited until its body evaporated, and then went on in to the bunker.

The first thing he saw when he came through the door was Rufus, standing in the middle of the sitting room as if he had been watching the door and waiting. At the sight of Tseng his eyes lit up and he smiled and said, "I knew you'd come."

Tseng's heart throbbed painfully. His chest felt too tight: he couldn't breathe.

Rufus' expression changed from pleasure to alarm. "What's that?" he asked, pointing at Tseng's face. "Blood?"

Tseng raised a hand to his cheek – but it was an effort, because his limbs felt like lead and his vision had begun to swim. His fingertips came away covered in dark green mucus. "Ichor – " he murmured.

The room was turning black. He swayed; his knees gave way, and he would have hit the floor if Rufus hadn't caught him.

"Knox!" Rufus shouted, "Tseng's been poisoned. Get the first aid box, now!"

Tseng felt himself being picked up and carried, and in his dazed state he thought what an extraordinary thing it was that the boy should have become so strong. Urgent fingers prised his mouth open; plastic grated against his teeth, and a cold liquid filled his mouth. He swallowed.

As if from the far end of a tunnel, he heard Rufus asking, "Should we give him another one?"

"No, he'll be OK now," Knox's rougher, accented voice replied. "Look, his colour's going back to normal."

"How could he have been so careless?"

"Sometimes you don't feel it at first."

Tseng felt a hand pressing against his brow. "Can you hear me?" said Rufus. "Can you open your eyes?"

He could. He saw that he was lying on the purple sofa. Rufus was kneeling beside him, and Knox was looking at him over Rufus' shoulder, his grey eyes full of concern behind the glasses.

_Too close - they're too close. _It was hard to breathe when they crowded him like this. Rufus' hand was smoothing the hair back from his forehead. Tseng pushed it away. "Leave me alone," he muttered. "It was nothing."

"Nothing!" exclaimed Rufus. "You were _green_, Tseng."

"He's come through worse, haven't you, Boss?" said Knox. "Much worse. Come on, V.P., move back and give him some air."

Strength was returning to Tseng's limbs. If he really tried now, he ought to be able to master his momentary weakness. Putting all his weight onto his elbows, he struggled to lift his head from the cushions.

"Stop that. You should rest," said Rufus.

"What's burning?" asked Tseng.

"Shit!" cried Knox. "The cheese on toast!" He dashed into the kitchen.

Rufus got up off the floor and sat himself on the wooden coffee table, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. His hair was mussed up, ruffled like an angry bird.

"Don't you ever do that again," he said with feeling. "God, Tseng. For a moment there I thought you were going to die."

"You don't – get rid of your – watchdog – nngh, that easily," Tseng grunted as he strove to lever himself into a sitting position. Rufus reached forward to put a hand under his elbow, saying, "Let me help you," but Tseng shook him off. Rufus sighed.

"Why can't you ever take it easy for five minutes?" he demanded. "There's no need to put on this show for my sake, you know. You may have everyone else fooled, but you don't fool me."

The glare Tseng gave him would have sent any of the Turks stepping swiftly backwards. Rufus didn't even blink.

"They're ruined," called Knox from the kitchen. "I'll have to start again."

"Can't you tell him to go?" Rufus asked Tseng.

"That – was my intention." Tseng had managed to get his feet on the ground, though he was sitting at an awkward angle, leaning into the arm of the sofa. "I need to talk to you."

Rufus rolled his eyes. Suddenly he looked very young.

"Knox," Tseng raised his voice a fraction. "Don't bother. It's only half an hour till your shift ends. I'll stay with the Vice-President until Rude comes. You can head on back to the office. Grab something to eat on your way in. And Knox – keep this to yourself. I don't want Rosalind fussing over me."

"Understood." Knox's grin was lop-sided; the knot of scars on his left cheek had pulled the muscles of his face out of true. Neither Tseng nor Rufus spoke while he gathered up his things, and when he was gone the silence continued for a few moments, before Rufus broke it by saying, "There's still the matter of my lunch to be addressed."

Tseng began to rise. Rufus put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down. "Of course I didn't mean you should do it. I think I'm capable of toasting a slice of bread. I want you to stay there. I'm going to make a cup of tea for you, and I'm going to put plenty of sugar in it, and I want you to drink it."

"I hate tea. It sets my teeth on edge."

"Then I'm sure you'll derive immense pleasure from displaying your fortitude as you choke it down."

With that parting shot, Rufus got his feet and went into the kitchen. As soon as the Vice-President's back was turned, Tseng allowed his head to droop until it came to rest against the cushions, and admitted to himself it was a relief not to have to try to sit up straight any more. The poison must have been more virulent than he'd realised. He stayed in this position until Rufus returned with the tea, when he pulled himself upright again. This time it wasn't quite such hard work.

"Here you go," said Rufus, setting the mug down on the table. "Exercise your willpower on that. I'll get us both something to eat."

As he sipped his tea (it tasted to Tseng like creosote, but its warmth and sweetness were not unwelcome), he watched Rufus moving about in the kitchen and wondered, not for the first time, _just what am I to him? _That Rufus had an attachment to him, a fondness for him, as Mink and several of the other Turks had sometimes observed, seemed undeniable; nor should it be all that surprising, really. After the Old Man, he'd probably been the single most constant presence in the boy's life. Yet in another way it was very surprising, when one considered that Rufus showed affection for very few things. His cat was one, and before the cat, Dark Nation, and… well, he had seemed fairly fond of Aerith when they were children, though he'd quickly stopped asking for her once she was gone.

_So am I his pet Turk, then? _

Commander Veld used to say Rufus craved his approval, and Tseng supposed he could see some truth in that. It had always been to him, after all, that Rufus had come with his excuses and his self-justifications in the months and years leading up to Corel. But a lot of that had probably been sleight of hand, designed to distract the attention of Veld and his lieutenant away from what Rufus was really up to.

Did Rufus still seek his approval? Hard to say. There were times when he sensed some kind of need, or expectation, in the boy's attitude, but more often than not these days he seemed to exasperate Rufus (the eye rolling, the sighs of resignation, the uninvited personal observations, the sullen silences) as much as Rufus infuriated him. Nor could Tseng shake off the feeling that it was somehow _because_ of him that Rufus was being so difficult lately – that Rufus' behaviour was aimed at him, that he was being made to pay for some real or imagined offense, something he had said or failed to say during that conversation about AVALANCHE and Scarlet back in October. Tseng had gone over and over what he could remember of their words to each other, but he still could not see how he'd offended, and Rufus wouldn't - or couldn't, or was too proud to - explain.

_I've got to do better than this_, Tseng admonished himself. _He's all we've got. He's all Shinra's got. We can't afford for me to make a mess of him, too._

Rufus came out of the kitchen carrying two plates of toasted cheese sandwiches, and set one down in front of Tseng. The bread was the soft, white kind that came from the supermarket ready sliced and wrapped in plastic, and the processed cheese was an unnatural shade of orange.

"Who bought these supplies?" asked Tseng, eyeing his plate doubtfully. "Reno?"

"Of course. His taste buds are so corrupt. However, since toasted cheese appears to be one of the few things your men can cook, I'm beginning to acquire a appreciation for it." As if to illustrate the point, Rufus bit into his sandwich with relish. Tseng forced down a mouthful, but on top of the tea it was too much. He put the plate aside.

"I made that for you," Rufus protested.

"One poisoning per day is my limit, thanks."

Rufus laughed, took Tseng's sandwich and put it on his own plate, asking as he did so, "What attacked you? Do you know?"

"Some sort of hound monster. I haven't seen it before." Pulling out his PHS, he showed Rufus the photograph. Rufus swallowed the lump he'd been chewing, chased it down with a long swig of tea, and then said, "I don't recognize it, either. It's not in any of the reference books, as far as I know."

"It may be another new species."

"Or a mutation."

"Yes. I'll have to tell the Professor." There was something like a sigh in Tseng's voice. "He'll want us to trap one for him."

"Why are there so many of them, do you think?"

"Mutations?"

"Monsters generally."

Tseng was surprised by the question. Surely Rufus knew that the mako was responsible for the monsters; everyone with S-level clearance knew that. Exposure to high levels of mako altered genetic sequences; this was the discovery that had enabled Shinra to launch the SOLDIER program. Even ordinary citizens, raised on the sanitized version of the truth which Shinra released for general consumption, knew how dangerous it was to fall into a pit of the stuff, or to breathe its raw fumes for too long. They understood that it was for their own protection that public access to the reactors had been banned.

"Mako is the accepted explanation," said Rufus, as if Tseng had spoken his thoughts aloud. "But think about it. Mako is a naturally occurring substance. It's been around for as long as this planet has existed. And some of these animals that we call monsters are our natural flora and fauna. Creatures like wolves and dragons and jumpings have evolved over millennia and are adapted to their environment. Records of their existence go back centuries. But for many of the monsters in the bestiary – I'd say at least forty per cent, as a rough guess – there's no record of any sightings going back before about fifty years ago, which coincidentally – or not – is about the time we started processing mako. The records also show that at first, sightings of these new life forms followed a pattern consistent with reactors becoming operational. The first were seen in Nibelheim, then here in Midgar, and then in Junon – and most recently, Corel."

"You'd expect to find that pattern. We've known for decades that reactors and monsters go together. They seem to be an unavoidable by-product."

"Yes," said Rufus impatiently, as if Tseng wasn't getting it. "But _why_?"

"Why are you asking me? You're the one who's been working his way through Domino's library."

"Do you really want to know what I think?" Rufus' eyes had acquired that blurry, glittering look they took on when the diamond cogs of his mind were spinning fast. "I think that mako is natural, but these mutations are unnatural, and therefore it follows that it can't be the mako per se that's causing them."

"Then what is?"

"Something unnatural."

"Like what?"

"That's what I don't know."

The little cat emerged from under the table to rub itself against Rufus' shin. He picked it up and draped it over his shoulder, where it lay in supine contentment, purring loudly, arching its back against the stroke of his hand.

Rufus said, "Do you ever go out into the badlands?"

"Hardly ever. We have no reason to go there. It's PSM's job to keep the roads clear."

"Hmm. Well, next time you do find yourself there, could you do me a favour?"

"That depends on the favour."

"Oh, it's just a little thing. Don't worry, it's nothing you would disapprove of. Just a little information gathering. All I want you to do is take off your gloves and touch the earth, and then come back and tell me what you feel."

"What for?"

"Because I'm curious. And because I can't do it myself."

"What am I supposed to feel?"

"Probably nothing. I'm probably completely wrong. But I don't want your impressions to be clouded by any preconceptions I might give you, so if you don't mind, I'd rather wait until after you've done it to explain."

Tseng felt the familiar tightening of muscles in his forehead. _Damn him_, he thought, _What's he playing at now?_ This conversation didn't seem to have any point…. And Tseng didn't have the time to spare today listening to Rufus hypothesize about the things he had read in Domino's dusty books.

There was a bad taste in Tseng's mouth. He ran his tongue around his teeth, furred with tannin and the cloying grease from the sandwich, and got to his feet, saying, "That cheese was disgusting. I need some water."

He went into the kitchen, turned on the water, and filled a glass. Midgar tapwater always tasted faintly of chlorine and mako, like a disinfectant. He swilled his mouth, spat into the sink, and felt cleaner.

"I have to leave soon," he announced when he went back into the sitting room.

Rufus' face fell. "You only just got here. And need I remind you that half an hour ago you were lying on this couch so weak that you couldn't sit up? Where do you have to rush off to now?"

"Junon. But there's something important I need to talk to you about first."

"This isn't going to turn into one of our little chats about Scarlet, is it? I am so very bored of hearing about her, Tseng."

"No. It's about you."

"Ah – "

"Rosalind says that you have been threatening to escape."

"Oh, she told you, did she?" Rufus was slipping into that sullen, flippant tone that never failed to make Tseng's blood pressure rise. "I suppose that's why you're here."

"I hope you were not being serious when you said it. You saw what happened to me today, and I was armed with guns and materia. You can't fight these monsters with your bare hands. Not even Rude would try to do that. If you left the protection of this bunker and tried to make your way back to the surface on your own, you would almost certainly die."

"Or maybe you were a little careless, hmm? Maybe you _slipped up_. Are you sure you're not exaggerating the danger? The company sends workers into the plate every day. They usually come out alive."

"They're not the future President of this company. If I thought you had any real intention of acting on these threats, I can promise you, Rufus, I would put you in a straitjacket and shackle you to these walls. Please don't think that I won't do it. I will not allow you to put yourself at risk."

"Yes, that would be rather selfish of me, wouldn't it? To deprive you of your bargaining chip."

Tseng was saved from the need to answer by the sound of the bunker door opening. Rude came in. He stopped abruptly when he saw them, glancing from Tseng to Rufus and back to Tseng, and though he did not speak his expression clearly wondered, _Am I interrupting something?"_

"No. I'm going," said Tseng. "Thank you for being punctual. Rufus, please think very carefully about what I said."

"I shall think about nothing else," Rufus replied with silky sarcasm.

Rude's eye fell upon the first aid box, which had been left on the table. He still said nothing, but when his eyes moved to Tseng's face, they stayed there for a while, taking a long look.

"I'm fine," said Tseng.

Almost imperceptibly, Rude nodded.

Tseng was walking out the door when Rufus called after him, "Don't forget."

_Forget what?_ wondered Tseng.

"The favour," said Rufus.

Oh yes, the badlands. Now, what was _that_ about?

* * *

_As always, thanks to everyone for reading, and to my cherished reviewers for taking the time to give me feedback.  
The chapter many of you have been waiting for is up next, probably within a few days. _


	39. Human, On My Faithless Arm

**CHAPTER 39: HUMAN, ON MY FAITHLESS ARM  
**_**In which Tseng's eyes are finally opened**_

_**

* * *

**_

Tseng's schedule that day left him no time for detours, and another week passed before business again took him out of Midgar. The day was a Wednesday; he had flown down to Junon to follow up on the Kathleen Brand case and to have a meeting with Charlie, and had taken Rude and Rosalind with him. Roz had fixed an appointment for him to talk to her sister, but though they waited for her at the branch office for over an hour, the girl failed to show. Rosalind was furious and deeply mortified.

"I'm afraid this is typical of her, sir," she said through clenched teeth. "No thought for anyone but herself. I'm so, so sorry."

It was late afternoon by the time they set off for home. Looking through the window at the scabbed, yellowish-grey earth of the badlands far below, Tseng was reminded of Rufus' odd request, and told Rude to put the chopper down. All three of them climbed out. Sunset striped the sky in bands of purple and crimson and fiery gold. The air was hot, parched, blotting the moisture from their lips and nostrils. There wasn't a breath of wind.

Tseng pulled off his left glove. Rosalind and Rude did likewise. Both Tseng and Rosalind drew their guns; in this place, corruptions of nature might leap from behind the rocks at any moment. Then Tseng went down on one knee, and pressed the flat of his hand against the pebbly soil.

At first he was not conscious of anything unusual. Under his hand the earth felt cold, especially by contrast with the rays of evening sunlight warming the back of his neck. Then, slowly, so slowly that for some moments he thought he was imagining it, the cold intensifed, becoming a morbid chill that seeped into his flesh and travelled through his hand into his wrist and up his arm. All the little joints in his fingers, his knuckles - even his elbow - began to ache, and the tips of his fingers grew numb.

He glanced across at Rosalind. She had snatched her hand away and was cradling it against her chest. Rude's eyes were hidden, but from the look of him he too had felt that appalling chill: the lines on either side of his mouth had deepened, and his clawed fingers bit into the earth.

"Is it – supposed to feel like this?" asked Rosalind, looking bewildered.

They stared at each other. All three of them were city-bred – Midgar, Junon - and their natural habitat was concrete, tarmac, steel. Tseng had to think hard to remember the last time he had touched the earth without his gloves on.

"The sun's been shining on it all day," said Rosalind. "Why is it so cold?"

The grave in Banora, that was the last time. A shallow hole filled with death, yet the earth piled over it had been rich with life: ants, earthworms, roots and germinating seeds. The soil itself had felt, to his exposed skin, alive, moist, warm.

"This is all wrong," Rosalind was saying, the alarm mounting in her voice. "It should be hot. At Costa the beach is so hot by the afternoon that you can't walk on it in bare feet. What's causing this, sir? Is it the pollution?"

Tseng scooped up a handful of dust and let it trickle through his fingers.

"This isn't just pollution," murmured Rude.

The cold seemed to have entered Rosalind's bones. She crouched with her hands tucked into her armpits, teeth chattering. "I thought 'dead zone' was just a figure of speech. All the times I've been here…. I had no idea…."

"We're done," said Tseng. "Let's go."

Somberly they climbed back into the helicopter. Rude took the controls.

"Drop me off down in Sector Five," Tseng told him. "There's something I need to do. Rosalind, field my calls. And don't mention this to anyone. Until I understand exactly what's going on, I don't want it talked about."

"Understood," said Rude.

"But you won't keep us in the dark any longer than you have to, will you?" Rosalind entreated. "Because _that_ was seriously strange."

"I give you my word," Tseng promised.

.

Night had fallen under the plate. Aerith was not in her church. Tseng walked down the empty nave to the echo of his own steps, his feet guided by the light from the flowers. He had given up trying to convince himself that this glow was an optical illusion, that it couldn't really exist. When he came to the flower-bed, he knelt on the broken floor, peeled off his gloves, and pushed his fingers deep among the roots.

The soil was cool, but it was alive. It felt good, soothing, against his skin. The badlands ache that had lingered in his bones began to fade, as if the earth itself were drawing it out of him.

Above his head there was a rustling of feathers as the white thing shuffled along its perch. Tseng sat back on his heels, thinking.

Did the soil keep the flowers alive? Did the flowers keep the soil alive? Or did Aerith give life to them both?

He got to his feet, brushed off his knees, left the church and walked to Aerith's house. Nothing about it had changed in the years since his last visit. Once Elmyra got over her dismay at finding him on her doorstep, she spoke to him in the same manner she had always used, frigid politeness masking profound distrust. "Aerith isn't here. I'm sorry for your wasted journey."

She had never, would never, invite him to come in and wait.

"I heard you got promoted," she added. "Congratulations. You must have many calls on your time these days." _So don't hang around here_, read the subtext.

"Mrs Gainsborough, forgive me, but I'm afraid I must go into your garden for a few minutes. I'll be careful not to disturb anything."

She followed him, as he had expected she would. Arms folded, she stood silently by the ladder, keeping an eye on him. He knelt on the ground and pressed his palms into the earth. The soil here was the same as the soil in the church, loamy, dark and rich-smelling, wet with the evening dew. A wood-louse crawled across the back of his hand, and he watched it for a moment or two before shaking it gently onto a leaf.

"Thank you," he said to Elmyra in passing.

On his way to the train station he stopped once more, to put his hand to the beaten earth of the footpath. This time he felt nothing: neither the cool lushness of the soil in the church nor the eerie coldness of the badlands. This slum earth was as dry as a bone, a bone so desiccated and so sterile that it was unable even to rot.

He found a train waiting in the station. The carriage reserved for the company's senior management was empty. He took a corner seat, and a few minutes later the train jerked and moved forward. As they wound their slow way up the pillar Tseng studied his hands. Dirt from Aerith's garden was caked under his fingernails.

He wondered, as he did every day, whether she had found out about Zack yet.

Kunsel the blabbermouth had been silenced before he'd had a chance to speak to her; Tseng hoped he was enjoying the solitude of Cactuar Island, since it was to be his home for the foreseeable future. By rights the Second should be dead, after shooting his drunken mouth off in the Goblins the way he had, but luckily for him his audience had been limited to half a dozen well-trained grunts and two off-duty Turks, Skeeter and Cavour. The fact that no real damage had been done, combined with the lingering affection the Old Man retained for his SOLDIERs, had allowed Kunsel to escape the usual consequences of indiscretion.

Of Zack himself, nothing more had been seen or heard since the morning he roared away on Cissnei's motorbike, vanishing into thin air. Tseng had mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, knowing Zack's whereabouts would have allowed him to feel he had some measure of control over the situation. On the other hand, he was grateful not to have to be dealing with the Zack problem right now. His initial assumption that Zack would come rushing headlong back to Aerith's arms had obviously been misplaced, and Tseng had mixed feelings about this, too. He would have liked to know the reason behind it. Was Zack waiting for the hue and cry to die down? Had his years as a lab rat taught him caution? Or did he have no intention of returning to Midgar, ever? Rude had said he was still human; Cissnei had said he was still Zack. Did this mean that he still believed, despite everything that had happened to him, that he had a right to a chance at happiness with the girl he loved? More immediately to the point, _did_ he still love her? Did he still want to be with her? Did he even remember her? Or had his love starved and died as he poured every ounce of energy into the more urgent business of staying alive?

Until Tseng knew the answers to these questions, only one course of action lay open to him. He intended to shield Aerith from the knowledge that Zack was alive for as long as he could - or at least until he could be sure that her hopes wouldn't be raised, only to be crushed again.

The train pulled in to the Sector One station. Tseng stepped out onto the busy platform and set off in the direction of the reactor. The upper esplanade was quiet, but Fountain Square and Loveless Avenue were teeming with nightlife. Tseng was so lost in his own thoughts that he almost passed by without seeing her – indeed, at first he didn't recognize her; it was more the impression of feminine curves pleasingly draped in pink that caught his eye and made him look round.

She was standing by the doorway of Les Marroniers, a large wicker basket filled with flowers hanging from the crook of her arm. Her eyes met his. He realized that she had seen him first; she had been watching him walk through the crowd, and if he had not noticed her she would have allowed him to pass by without saying a word.

How long had it been since they had last seen each other? Six months, at least. She had grown a little taller, filled out a little more in all the right places. Her face was both softer and stronger, more womanly. That pink dress was new: low-cut, figure-hugging, buttoning up the front. The boots looked strange paired with such an outfit, but he supposed they were practical – for running, or for kicking over-friendly punters in the groin.

He walked across to her. "Good evening, Aerith."

She put a smile on her face - the kind of smile, he guessed, that she offered to all her customers, the kind that didn't reach her wary eyes. "Hullo, Tseng."

He tried to counter her smile with a real one of his own. "It's good to see you. How's business?"

"Pretty much the same as ever, it looks like to me." Her gaze flicked over him, taking in the suit, the tie, the practical ponytail. Tseng had never been much good at smiling, even when it wasn't forced, and she was making him feel as awkward as an uninvited guest, grinning stupidly, all teeth. So he gave it up, letting his face fall back into its natural seriousness, and said, "I wasn't following you."

"I know. If you'd been spying on me I'd never have seen you, would I?"

Passers-by were turning to look at them. Aerith noticed their curious stares. She reached into her basket for a posy tied with a yellow ribbon, and her smile turned wheedling as she said, "Buy some flowers for your girlfriend, mister? Only twenty gil."

"You used to give me flowers for nothing."

"No freebies. I'm a businesswoman now."

There were so many things he wanted to ask her. "Then let me buy you a drink instead," he said.

She wasn't expecting him to suggest that, and she didn't like it, either; she backed away, shaking her head. "Oh, that's so kind, and I'd love to, really, but I can't. The theatres will be out any minute and that's when trade really picks up."

"You must have been on your feet for hours. Take a break."

"It's all right, I'm used to it."

"Just ten minutes."

"No, Tseng. Really, I can't."

"I need to talk to you." His hand closed around her arm.

"No."

"Yes. Now."

"No. Let go of me," she said in an undertone. "People are staring."

"Ten minutes, that's all I'm asking."

"Do you want to ruin me?" she demanded, keeping her voice low and sounding almost reasonable. "All these people are my customers. I can't let them see me drinking with a Turk. Least of all you. Just having you standing here talking to me is bad enough. Don't you know what people say about you? They'd think I was working for you, that I was a – a stool pigeon. My reputation would be destroyed. Tseng, please –" His fingers were digging into her flesh. "Stop it. You're hurting me."

He said, "It's too bad you weren't thinking about your reputation when you started fucking Zack Fair."

The look on her face as his words sunk in was the same look that crossed people's faces when he drew his pistol and shot them through the heart: a look more of disbelief than of pain. For the space of about three seconds he found it deeply satisfying.

Then he had the sensation of something inside him cracking, breaking, something as delicate and as simple as glass, which he had laid hands on in a moment of madness and shattered beyond all hope of repair.

He let go of her. That wounded look in her eyes darkened to one of contempt. Without another word she pushed past him and walked off briskly in the direction of the station, shoulders back, head held high, her long plait swinging from side to side.

For a moment he considered going after her. Zack would have done it; he'd have chased her, pleaded with her, begged for her forgiveness, followed her home and camped out under her window all night if need be, until she relented.

People were watching him. Tseng threw a glare at them, and they quickly went about their business. He ran a hand over his hair, needlessly straightened his tie, and adjusted his cuffs, noticing as he did so that some of the dirt from Aerith's garden had stained his sleeve. Unusually for him, he felt the need for a drink – not beer or Charlie's sherry, but something hard, no ice. Giving a wide berth to the Goblins and the colleagues he would undoubtedly find getting drunk in there, he went down a side alley and into a busy little bar he had never visited before. Shinra people were unavoidable, but if they weren't from his own department at least they left him alone.

With a double vodka inside him he felt ready to get back to work. It occurred to him that he now had some insight into what it must feel like to be Reno, which, in turn, made him laugh, and to his own ear his laughter also sounded like Reno's: harsh, cracked.

Out the door, up the alley, through the streets to the reactor; down into the bowels of the reactor and through one of the many doors into the honeycombed interior of the plate. Ladders, monsters; gangways, monsters; lifts, monsters; corridors, monsters….

He opened the door of the bunker and went in.

Rufus, stripped to the waist, was running on the treadmill at the far end of the room. His back was turned towards the door, and he neither saw nor heard Tseng come in. Sweat-darkened strands of hair clung to his pale neck. Each exhalation of breath was a laboured grunt. The cross-hatching of scar tissue on his shoulders and back shone silver under the bloom of perspiration.

For a few moments Tseng was content to stand and admire the play of muscles beneath Rufus' scarred skin. The young man's torso was a perfect triangle, broad shoulders narrowing to a slim waist, not an ounce of spare flesh anywhere. His right arm, his shooting arm, was a little thicker than the left, but in every other respect his proportions were flawless.

_Here's one thing we're managing to get right,_ thought Tseng. _At least we're making a real man of him._

The treadmill began to slow down. Rufus jumped off, grabbed a towel and slung it round his neck, took a long drink from a glass of water, turned round, saw Tseng, and smiled.

All the brittle shards of glass that had lodged in Tseng's heart when he wounded Aerith seemed to move then, to shiver, and he felt the familiar heat of desire stirring between his thighs.

Dismayed, he took a step backwards. _What? _he cried inwardly, _No - that's Rufus – __my__ Rufus. What's wrong with me tonight? I can't be drunk, not on one double of vodka – _

And he might, in that moment of confusion (or sudden clarity) have turned and fled, had Hunter not spoken from behind him, "Hey, hi Boss." He swiveled round to find her standing in the kitchen doorway with a steaming mug of coffee in her hand, looking surprised at the sight of him. Tseng said the first thing that came into his head. "It's a bit – late, isn't it? To work out?"

"Time has no meaning in this place," Rufus laughed. "There is neither night nor day."

"Put this on, sir, before you catch cold," said Hunter, throwing the Vice-President a black hoodie. Rufus caught it one-handed, said, "I'm going to have a shower. I'll be right back," and disappeared into the bathroom. A moment later Tseng heard the sound of water running.

"Coffee, sir?" asked Hunter.

"I'm all right, thanks," Tseng replied.

He was lying, but only to her. To himself he acknowledged that he was probably as far from all right as he had ever been. Lashing out at Aerith – pouring alcohol on his self-inflicted wounds – reacting inappropriately to the sight of the Vice-President's naked back…

It had been a long and difficult day, but that was no excuse. And yes, he was very tired, but that was no excuse either. He needed to get a grip. Ahead of him, before he could go home and get some rest, lay the prospect of an equally long and difficult talk with Rufus about just what the hell was happening out there in the badlands. Rufus could be so damn bloody-minded when he was in the wrong mood… as he seemed to be nearly all the time, these days. But if Tseng didn't tackle him now, he'd have to do it tomorrow, and the longer he put it off, the harder it would be.

He asked Hunter, "When does your shift end?"

"I've got another four hours before Roz comes, sir."

Four hours was much longer than he had planned on spending down here. For a moment he toyed with the idea of leaving. Or maybe he should tell Hunter to stay with him while he talked to Rufus – but no, that wouldn't work; Rufus was even less likely to be open or honest if someone else was in earshot. A small voice in the back of Tseng's mind whispered that he was in no state tonight to deal rationally with anybody, and that the wise thing to do would be to turn around and go. And he knew it was god advice, but… he didn't want to leave. He just didn't _want_ to. And maybe he was carefully avoiding right at this very moment looking too deeply into the source of his resistance – or maybe it was already too late. Too much remained unresolved. The badlands ache still tingled in his skin, and his splintered heart had quickened. He felt himself poised on the brink of a revelation. If he let this opportunity escape, it might never come again…

"Sir?" Hunter broke into his train of thought. "Are you staying?"

"Yes," he replied, though he hadn't known for sure till it left his lips what his answer would be. All his decisions tonight seemed to be making themselves at some level beyond his consciousness. "You can knock off early," he added. "I'll cover for you till Roz gets here."

"Really? Oh, sir, thank you!" She didn't wait to be told twice, but put down her coffee, grabbed her shotgun, ran to the door and opened it.

"Be careful," he reminded her.

"I will. Boss, you're the best, you know that?"

Once she was gone he picked up her coffee and tasted it, but it had too much sugar for his liking. He threw it down the sink and put a fresh pot on to brew. While he waited, his thoughts ran over a conversation he, Rude and Reno had had some while back – at least six months ago, or possibly more – in which Reno had proposed that it was high time they provided their rehabilitated prisoner with some female company, "so he doesn't go completely stir-crazy on us." Tseng had said, "You have some deaf, blind tart in mind, I take it?" meaning _that's obviously not going to happen, it's completely impractical_. Reno, predictably, had replied, "I can get you twins," and Rude had snorted with laughter, to Tseng's annoyance. He could have put forward other objections - the logistics were impossible; the security risk was too high – but what he said was, "Fine, you suggest it to him." Whether Reno had in fact made the offer to Rufus, or whether he had decided, upon reflection, that he preferred not to travel down that road a second time, Tseng didn't know and hadn't asked. The subject was never raised again.

Tseng poured his coffee and went back to the sitting room, where he found the object of his thoughts lying stretched out on the green velvet sofa, one arm folded behind his blond head. Rufus had put on black silk pajamas, and his hair, still wet from the shower, was combed back from his forehead. At the sight of him Tseng's pulse played the same trick that had earlier taken him by surprise.

_So, that's how it is_, he thought. _Damn._

"You have dirt under your fingernails," Rufus observed.

"Yes." Tseng sat down on the opposite sofa.

"So? How was it?"

"Like touching a dead body."

Rufus nodded, as if this was the confirmation he had been expecting. His gaze strayed away into the middle distance, chasing some thought Tseng couldn't follow; then he snapped back to Tseng and asked, "Were you surprised?"

"We don't – commune much with nature, in our department."

Rufus laughed softly. "No. That's not our company's strong suit in _any_ department. Is it?" One recalcitrant lock of hair kept falling stubbornly into his eyes. He ran a hand up the side of his head to push it away. Each time Rufus did this, Tseng's chest constricted, and he had to make an extra effort to breathe normally.

_Damn_ _it_, he thought again, _this is going to be… inconvenient…._

"You see it now, don't you?" Rufus asked him.

"What?"

"What my old man is doing. Not content with reducing my inheritance to ashes town by town, because that would take longer than he's got left, he's sucking the life out of it like a giant tapeworm as fast as he possibly can. Those dead areas are spreading at an exponential rate. I ran some forecasts on the computer a few weeks back. They give us another thirty years, maximum, before life becomes unsustainable. Less, if he manages to build that reactor in Wutai."

"The mako…"

"Yes. The mako. Or rather, the lack of it."

A jumble of thoughts and memories were crowding into Tseng's mind. Briefly he fell silent, trying to sort them into some kind of order. Then he said, "You understand what you're suggesting? That the Lifestream isn't just a myth? You're saying you think the mako _is_ the Lifestream."

Rufus wrinkled his nose, as if he found the word, or the idea, distasteful. "Broadly, yes, though that's not a term I'd endorse."

"So AVALANCHE was right all along, that's what you're saying."

Rufus seemed amused by that; one blond eyebrow quirked upwards as he replied, "Well, yes, I suppose so, though I prefer to say that they weren't _entirely_ wrong."

Tseng's fists clenched, and when he next spoke he felt as if he were shouting inwardly, trying to make himself heard over the tumult of his own mind, "Is that where you got this information? From them?"

Blue eyes rolled towards the ceiling. "Tseng, don't you ever listen to me? How many times have I told you that I had no interest in their agenda? No, I worked it out for myself, a couple of months ago, when I began putting together some of the things I was reading in Domino's books. It's not rocket science. Once you start looking into it, the facts are staring you in the face."

"And you sent me to the badlands to prove that your thesis was correct?"

"Not at all. I knew I was right. But I also knew you wouldn't believe me if I told you. You had to feel it for yourself."

As he said this, Rufus stretched, luxuriously, unselfconsciously, pushing his arms above his head until the elbow joints cracked, arching his back and spreading his toes, catlike and easy. The motion pulled his shirt loose, exposing a triangle of flat, muscular abdomen, the satin of his pale young skin heightened by contrast with the rough black slub of the pajama fabric, and by the fine line of pale gold fuzz running down from his navel to disappear beneath the loose waistband of his trousers.

Quickly Tseng looked away. He forced himself to ask, "Does – the Board know?" though his tongue was clumsy in his mouth, and to his own ears the words sounded slurred, overloud.

_After all the work I've put into this boy, all the time and effort I've devoted to saving him from himself, for the company's sake, for all our sakes… Must everything be reduced to this, the banality of desire?_

"You would think so," Rufus replied, seemingly too caught up in chasing his own ideas to notice that something was wrong. "I find it hard to believe that Hojo, Scarlet and Reeve are unaware of the situation, though Hojo probably sees it as some fascinating experiment. As for Reeve, we all know he's the master of the art of burying one's head in the sand, and Scarlet, according to you, is fully occupied with more immediately pressing matters…."

_You know, it would be smart to get out of here_, insisted that small voice at the back of Tseng's mind. _You really ought to leave __now__ – _

Rufus' stronger voice broke in, "What about Veld? Do you think he knew? Did he ever say anything to you?"

"He - he said… He used to talk about the pollution…"

"Hmm. There was a lot he kept to himself, wasn't there?"

"He didn't believe in the Lifestream."

Again Rufus' nose twitched, and he said, "Can we please not call it that? Bringing religion into the equation merely clouds the issue. Whether or not the mako is actually a river of dead souls is neither here nor there; what concerns me are the facts, and the fact, Tseng, however little we like it, is that this planet is a living entity, an organism that needs the mako to survive. Mako extraction is killing it, inch by inch. And once it's dead, nothing can bring it back to life.

A radiant image leapt into Tseng's mind: flowers, growing where no flowers ought to grow. But he did not trust himself to utter her name.

"Did you really have no idea?" Rufus asked him. "But you must at least have known that mako is a finite resource. And we're using it up at a phenomenal rate. What did you think was going to happen eventually?"

"I - don't know. I suppose… that a solution would present itself -"

"What? Like magic? When the mako's gone, the magic will be gone too. And so will we. That's not a prospect I care to contemplate." Rufus turned onto his side, propping his head up on one hand, and pointed a finger at the Turk. "You're the one who's always lecturing me about this company's future, but if we go on like this, Shinra has no future. You see that now, don't you? Or are you still pinning your hopes on finding the promised land?"

Tseng saw again her look of contempt as she turned her back on him and walked away.

"Because it doesn't exist," Rufus went on. "It can't. Logically, it's impossible. This planet is finite, so how can it contain within itself a place that holds an infinite supply of anything? The only reason my old man believes in it – well, aside from his fundamental irrationality – is because it allows him to carry on building reactors and sucking out mako without needing to give any real thought to the long-term consequences."

_She saw me first, but she didn't greet me. She didn't want me to see her. She was hoping I'd walk right by, like a stranger – or something worse…_

"We've assumed that the promised land must be a bottomless fountain of mako because that's what we want it to be, but nothing in any of the literature I've read suggests that the Ancients held that belief. You must have talked to Aerith Gast about this. What does she say?"

_She said it would ruin her to be seen in the company of a Turk. Especially this Turk – _

"Tseng?"

_She asked if I knew what people said about me._

"Tseng? What is it?" Rufus kicked the cushion aside and sat up, eyes alert, as if only now, for the first time this evening, fully perceiving the man who sat opposite him. That unruly lock of hair fell over his brow. Impatiently he pushed it away, demanding, "Is something wrong? What's the matter?"

_ Don't look at me like that. I'm only human._

"Tseng?"

_Do monsters feel the need to be loved?_

"Tseng? Are you all right?"

With an effort of will Tseng pulled himself together and attempted to answer the earlier question. "I don't… see much of her, these days. She has her own life. I'm not a part of it."

"Ah," said Rufus slowly. "I didn't know that. You never talk about her."

"I bumped into her tonight, in fact. She… would have preferred to avoid me. And she was… pretty forthright about it. That's typical of her. She pointed out certain things she thought I might not know. Home truths, you might call them."

He paused.

Rufus had gone very quiet. Tseng glanced up at him. The way he was sitting looked unnaturally still – rigid, almost, as if he had suddenly realized he'd wandered into the middle of a minefield and was afraid of taking a wrong step - afraid even to breathe.

"They were nothing I didn't know already, but I didn't like hearing them. Not from her," Tseng told him. "It made me angry."

Blue eyes locked with his_. Go on_, they urged.

"I said something I now regret."

"It doesn't matter," said Rufus softly. "Let it go."

"But you see, the thing is, I always knew we would come to this point eventually. I've been lying to her for so many years."

"Don't think about her any more. We don't need her."

"She despises me. She left me in no doubt about that. And rightly so. I promised her that I would protect her, that she could trust me. But what have I ever protected her from? Aside from the truth?"

"You've got to stop thinking about her," said Rufus. "She doesn't love you. She never will…"

He was having trouble articulating his words. A vein throbbed in the hollow of his throat. He looked as if he were running a temperature: the skin of his neck and chest had flushed, and in his glittering blue eyes the pupils were huge. There was no mistaking that look, no way for Tseng to pretend that he hadn't seen it.

"She doesn't love you," Rufus repeated, and this time he hesitated only a moment before adding, "But I do."

Then it seemed to Tseng as if the world fell away and dissolved around them, like the sim room when the game was over. He and Rufus were the only two real things left in it, breathing hard, staring at each other.

.

_Meanwhile, over in Junon:_

Elena's current boyfriend is sprawled naked on her bed, listening to one half of a heated telephone conversation.

"I never asked to meet him, Roz," she says, "You arranged it without consulting me."

A pause, and then, "How is that my fault? You said you were down here on business anyway."

Longer pause, then, "Grateful? Why? He's just going to take your side, isn't he?"

The voice at the other end of the line can be heard twittering. She cuts it short: "I can make my own decisions. I don't need guidance counselling from some corporate goon."

And then, "I'd rather sell myself on the street than do what you do."

A sharp intake of breath. "Oh? Well, let me tell you what _you_ are. _You_ are an anally-retentive, sexually repressed spinster on the verge of middle age who's trying to control _my_ life because you've screwed up so badly with her own -"

Another pause. A laugh, but not a happy one. "Yeah? Well sometimes I hate you too, Roz. So go cry on your boss' shoulder, boo-hoo – "

"She hung up," says Elena, a note of surprise in her voice as she turns to look at her boyfriend, the phone still open in her hand. He takes it, puts it on the table, runs one hand up her arm and snakes the other round her waist. Pulling her against him, he kisses her hard, saying, "You're one hot mean girl, you know that?"

_This guy's really an idiot_, she thinks.

She's discovering that she doesn't like him much (like every guy she's ever been involved with, he's turning out to be a lazy, boastful procrastinator with an apparently permanent hard-on) and she's beginning to suspect that he doesn't like her either (she's been called a _competitive bitch_, though not by him, not yet). Still, he has a surfer's good looks, tanned, bleached, and smooth, and the sex is pretty good: it feels like fighting, and while they're doing it, and in the afterglow that follows, she forgets, for a while, to be angry…

.

…_While down in the bunker:_

"Well?" says Rufus. "Are you just going to sit there? It wasn't easy for me to say that, you know. Can't you help me out a little? What are we supposed to do now? Are you – I mean, should I… Oh, for God's sake, Tseng, _say_ something_, _please…"

.

_And in Rocket Town:_

Cid picks up his teacup and hurls it at Shera. He misses; it hits the wall and shatters. He stands up, knocking his chair over, and walks out, slamming the door behind him.

He always misses. The day he doesn't miss is the day she does the walking. That's what she tells herself….

.

_And down in the bunker:_

Tseng wants reach out for him but he cannot; he is afraid of his own hands, of how they might betray him; afraid to move or speak. He let Rufus come to him.

_ Is this what you want_? Rufus whispers in Tseng's ear. _Yes? _His lockpicker's fingers work open the knot in Tseng's tie, freeing his voice at last. There are so many things Tseng could say, should say, so many reasons why not, but he can't find the words for any of them; the only word his tongue remembers is the syllable Rufus slipped into his ear, the question re-shaped as an answer….

.

…_While in the slums of Sector Seven:_

"OK, I take back what I said about the fat arse," says Reno to Rude.

He, Rude and Cavour are sitting at one of the corner tables in Seventh Heaven. They're halfway through their third round of beers.

"Face, check. Legs, check. Hair, check," says Cavour admiringly. "Chick's fully loaded. Toned, too. Works out. Nice. You definitely know how to pick 'em, Rude."

Reno objects, "Aw, come on, she's not that special. I could buy a pair of knockers like that on any street corner."

"But would they be real?" asks Cavour.

"You think those are real? You copped a feel yet, Rude?"

"Shut up."

"I bet you haven't even spoken to her."

A blush darkens Rude's swarthy skin.

"You sap!" cries Reno. "Are you telling me you come down here night after night just to sit there and make goo-goo eyes at her? And you call yourself a Turk! Shit, man, I bet you write poetry to her, too -"

"Like, roses are red," Cavour starts off, "And violets are blue – "

"Can I have a puff-puff, 'coz they're too good to be true!"

Reno and Cavour bump fists, delighted by their own wit.

"Dickheads," growls Rude.

"Spoony bard," Reno counters.

"Twat."

"Wanker."

"Arsehat."

Reno crows with laughter. "I've never understood that one. But you know – " he reaches up to rub his partner's bald head affectionately, "It kind of suits you…"

.

_Back down in the bunker:_

At first they take it slowly, as if afraid that too quick a motion, or too loud a noise, might startle the fragile moment and put it to flight. A suit is removed piece by piece, guns laid aside, shirts carefully unbuttoned, with long pauses between each layer to look at and touch what has been uncovered. But when they are both completely naked, and Tseng's hair has fallen loose down his back, Rufus breaks restraint and begins to kiss him wildly, hungrily, like a starving man, as if he would like to eat Tseng alive, every morsel of him, leaving nothing for anyone else…

.

…_While on the other side of the slum saloon:_

Tifa hides her clenched fists beneath the bar.

Why can't that big skinhead find somewhere else to get pissed? He does nothing but watch her. It gives her the creeps. And tonight he's brought reinforcements. Why? Do they suspect something?

"Jessie," she whispers in her friend's ear as the girl comes past with a tray of dirty pint glasses, "Try to keep Barret out of sight. And don't let Marlene come in here."

The laughter of the three men in the blue suits sends shivers up her spine. Their eyes are so flinty she could strike a match on them. They look at her as if she's a piece of something – ass, or dead meat, it makes no difference to them.

It's hard to believe that Cloud works with these monsters. But he does, and she has to keep reminding herself of that fact, to stop the hope from becoming unbearable…

.

…_While back down in the bunker:_

As he comes Rufus calls Tseng's name out on a rising note, almost panicky, over and over. _Tseng? Tseng? Tseng? _Like a lost child…

.

_A short time later, on the 48__th__ floor of the Shinra Corporation's headquarters:_

"You've been quiet all evening," says Skeeter to Aviva. They're sitting back to back at their respective computers, finishing off reports. He leans sideways in his chair to talk to her. "What's up, Vee? Something bothering you?"

Aviva sighs.

"Hey, that sounds pretty heavy."

"I was in Sector Five this morning," she tells him, "Coming back from my shift with the Vice-President. There was this little girl, maybe five years old, walking a bit ahead of me. I saw a toy moogle fall out of her backpack. She didn't notice, so I picked it up and ran after them to give it back. When the girl saw me she stared at me like this – " Aviva shows Skeet a terrified face – "And she ran and hid behind her mother, like - like I was something scary from under the bed."

Skeeter chuckles. "You know better than to go around giving little kids nightmares. That's bad PR, that is."

"I didn't mean to frighten her."

"Aw, don't take it that way - "

"'Be a good girl, or the Turks will get you'. Is that what they say?"

"C'mon, Veev, I was just joking – "

"I know," she sighs. "I know, I know. Sorry. I'm just - being silly…"

.

…_And back down in the bunker:_

Tseng wakes from a dream of drowning and realizes that it was no dream: Rufus, though fast asleep, is holding on to him. Rufus's arms are wound around his waist, Rufus' face is pressed between his shoulder blades, Rufus' knees are tucked behind his own. The heat from Rufus' bare skin warms him through.

And he's happy. It's the strangest feeling. Like floating; like having nothing to be afraid of.

He remembers he must make a phone call…

.

_Finally, in the mezzanine of the Shinra building:_

Rosalind snatches her ringing phone out of her pocket, flips it open, and snaps, "Laney, if you think – Oh, Tseng! I'm so sorry, I thought you were my sister. Yes, I did. No, no apologies. I keep telling myself that at least I tried. Yes, sir, I'm on my way, I'm just leaving the building now – What? Are you sure? Well…. Thank you. But try not to work all night, sir. The VP will talk your ear off if you let him, and you need to get some sleep, you're not a machine, sir. All right, take care. I'll see you tomorrow morning."

She closes the phone, feeling obscurely let down. The Boss has just kindly given her the night off; that's something that doesn't happen very often. She feels she ought to make the most of it. The trouble is, she has no idea how.

* * *

.

_Author's note: I posted this to stop myself tinkering with it any more. My apologies for the delay. If you've ever felt like reviewing this story, dear reader, now would be a good time: I would really, really welcome constructive criticism on this chapter.  
The chapter title is taken from a poem by W.H. Auden called "Lay Your Sleeping Head", which for me pretty much sums up Tseng's feelings for Rufus. A few of the titles for the following chapters are also borrowed from this poem, as was "Time and Fevers". _

_Thanks, everyone, for reading and sticking with this tale. So, Rufus and Tseng are together at last - but for how long...? _


	40. Till Break of Day

**CHAPTER 40: TILL BREAK OF DAY  
**_**In which Tseng tells Rufus a story, and tries to set some ground rules.**_

_**

* * *

**_

"Your body's like a book," said Rufus, running his fingers over Tseng's many scars. "I want to know all its stories."

To watch without being seen, to be present without casting a shadow, to breathe without giving himself away: these were Tseng's experiences of love; or else a quick tangling of limbs on rented sheets; the fulfillment of animal needs, expressed in animal noises. Words and laughter, playful talk, mutual conversation – these things were so far removed from what he knew of love that Rufus's very articulate enthusiasm for his body caught him unprepared, defenceless.

Tseng had fallen into the habit of thinking of his body as another tool of his trade, hidden, like his gun, beneath his suit, and he was as conscious of its form and function as he was of the look and feel of his Quicksilver service revolver, a plain, efficient weapon whose beauty lay in being fit for its purpose. He knew that he was not unpleasing to the eye; that he was agile and well-proportioned, precise in all his movements, and much stronger than he appeared at first glance. It would have shamed him to be anything less.

But it was his blemishes that Rufus sought out and lingered over. "This one," he said, pressing his lips to a shiny red patch of skin behind Tseng's right ear. "How did you get it?"

"Genesis. He Hell-Firaged me once, in Banora…"

At the corner of his right eye was a tiny sickle-shaped scar. Rufus touched it with the tip of his little finger. "This one?"

"Modeoheim. The helicopter crash."

"And this?" In the angle where Tseng's neck met his shoulder there were old teeth marks. Usually his collar and tie kept them hidden. "Should I be jealous?" Rufus murmured, fitting his own mouth to the spot. Involuntary shivers ran through Tseng's skin.

"Fight at school," he said. It was becoming difficult to breathe silently.

Rufus slipped a hand under his back and eased him onto his side. "What about this one?" he asked, his finger tickling a delicate zig-zag across Tseng's shoulder-blade.

"AVALANCHE." The thrumming of blood in Tseng's ears was making it hard for him to hear his own voice. "The night they took Hojo. Shears blew our jeep off the road."

"Ah, then it's my mark. That's my favourite so far. Show me another."

Tseng gestured with his chin at his left shoulder, where there was a puckered circle the size of a farthing. "Gunshot. Engetsu hideout east of Junon. It was the first mission I went on with the Legend."

"No, I meant show me another one of mine."

Tseng point at his inner thigh. "Here."

"I don't see anything there."

"You have to look closer."

"Ha," Rufus laughed deep in his throat, "I see your game, Turk…"

At the sound of that laughter, Tseng came undone. Self-control abandoned him; his unkind hands trembled and grew tender. The lovemaking that followed was clumsy, even a little ridiculous, but that only made Rufus laugh more, quickening the urgency of Tseng's desire.

Rufus didn't yet have much idea of what he was doing, and in his overeagerness he handled Tseng awkwardly, sometimes hurting him without meaning to. There were a score of places within walking distance of the office where Tseng could have found or bought better sex, if by _better_ one meant accomplished and professional. But it was a long time since anyone had laughed in his arms like this, and a longer time still since he had found so much joy in the physical act of love.

Later, as they lay resting with Rufus' head cradled in the hollow of Tseng's shoulder, the younger man ran his hand over the largest of all the scars, a ribbon of raised flesh wide as two fingers, darker than the surrounding skin, that bisected Tseng's torso at an angle, beginning at his left hipbone and tapering off just under his right nipple. "It's a miracle this didn't kill you," said Rufus. "What happened?"

Tseng was playing with Rufus' hair in an abstracted kind of way, picking it up and letting it run through his fingers. "A metal girder fell on me," he said.

"Where? When? Why? Give me the full story. I want details."

"Then be quiet, and listen.…"

.

They'd boarded a Wutaian cargo ship in Costa harbour, he and Commander Veld. Tseng was on probation after an earlier screw-up, when he'd missed the chance to get hold of some essential data by stopping to save an infantryman's life. "What are you, thick?" Veld had snarled at him. "Grunts are cheap, but that information could cost Shinra a fortune. Individuals can always be replaced, my boy. Once you get that into your head –" he gave Tseng a sharp rap on the skull with his knuckle – "Then you can truly call yourself a Turk."

Anyway, they'd received a tip-off that the data was now on this cargo ship, and Veld had come along to ensure that nothing went wrong. _To hold my hand_, thought Tseng shamefacedly. He was feeling like the greenest of green rookies, and the Commander wasn't showing him any mercy. "Looking a little pale there, son," he taunted. "Not feeling scared, are you? Well, do your best. I guess that's all I can ask." Once on board, they split up, Veld to search for the stolen weaponry, Tseng with orders to recover or destroy the data. He made his way to the bridge. Three men – native Costans by their accents – stood gathered around a computer. Hearing him approach, one spun round and immediately opened fire. Tseng ducked for cover behind the ship's wheel and drew his gun, killing the man who had shot at him. The other two took advantage of the exchange of gunfire to remove a disk from the CPU. They fled, holding Tseng at bay with a hail of bullets.

Remembering his orders, he did not immediately pursue them, but went over to the computer to confirm that the data on the screen was indeed the stolen software. He deleted it from the computer's memory; then, after a moment's consideration, he keyed in instructions to delete the entire hard drive. _That'll stop them going anywhere_, he thought, and turned to the ship's CCTV monitors to establish the whereabouts of his targets.

What he saw on the screen made his heart stand still. Down in the hangar bay the Commander was fighting for his life, backed into a corner by three proto-Golem robots, activated, Tseng assumed, by the same men who had just fled with the disk.

He pulled out his phone. "Hold on, sir, I'm coming!"

"Have you got the data?" Veld demanded.

"Not yet, but – "

"Just do your job, goddamit. I can take care of myself." Veld hung up.

With all his senses raised to a new pitch of efficiency by his fears for the Commander's safety, Tseng obediently and swiftly hunted down the targets, killed them, recovered the disk, and ran to the hangar bay. Commander Veld was bleeding from several deep wounds to his face and arms, but was still on his feet. He grinned when he saw the disk Tseng was clutching. "That's my boy. Now help me get rid of these things."

Fighting back to back, they destroyed the robots. "This ship's riddled with booby-traps," Veld told Tseng. "Let's get out of here before the whole shebang blows right out of the water." They were running across the cargo bay when an explosion rocked the deck and sent Tseng flying backwards. A tall metal loading derrick, knocked loose by the blast, came crashing down on him; he felt an inner explosion of pain as his flesh shredded and his bones shattered. Smoke filled the air. He was trapped, pinned to the deck by the weight of the derrick's steel girder.

"Don't stop," he called to the Commander.

But Veld had already turned back. Taking hold of the girder with both hands, he strained with every ounce of his strength to lift it.

"Don't," said Tseng weakly. "It's too heavy – "

"I – can do it – "

A second booby-trap went off, and a long shudder passed through the ship from prow to stern. It began listing steeply to starboard.

"Please," said Tseng, "Take the disk. The mission – "

Veld's teeth were clenched with the pain of his wounds and the effort it took to shift the girder aside far enough to drag Tseng free. "Bugger the mission," he snarled, "I'm not leaving you here…"

All the time Tseng was telling this story, Rufus had been stroking his fingers up and down the ribbon of scar tissue. Now he stopped.

"When was this?" he asked.

"During the war."

"How old was I?"

"It was in '95. I was eighteen, so you must have been eight."

"You nearly died," said Rufus, making it sound like an accusation. "What day was it?"

"Friday, August the twelfth. Afternoon."

"I remember that day," said Rufus. "That was the day of Harry Worthington's birthday party. They had fireworks. I remember it exactly. While I was playing pass the parcel and eating rainbow jelly and trying to take a peek up Allegra Fortescue's skirt, you were dying, and I never knew. If it hadn't been for Veld, you'd be dead. He saved your life."

"More than once."

"Is that where he got those scars on his face?"

"Some of them, yes."

Rufus sat up, his elbows slung across his knees. "I want to save your life," he complained, looking over his shoulder at Tseng, as if the Turk were somehow to blame for having failed to provide him with an opportunity.

"My job is to protect you, not the other way round – ungh!"

For Rufus had punched Tseng in the shoulder, a little harder than perhaps was strictly called for. "Don't mock me," he warned.

Tseng raised a hand. He'd been intending to flick Rufus' ear in reprisal for the punch, but something in the boy's expression stopped him, and instead he laid his hand on Rufus' arm and said, "Lie down with me again. We don't have much longer."

Curled uncomfortably around each other on the narrow bunk bed, they lay quietly together for a while, listening to the distant throbbing of the reactors, so similar in rhythm and timbre to the beat of a human heart – as if it really were blood they were pumping.

_Is anything what I thought it was?_ Tseng wondered. _Am I?_

Could Rufus's theory about the mako be right? It seemed impossible. But then again, it also seemed impossible that less than twelve hours ago he'd been sitting in a bar in Sector 8 drinking neat vodka and trying to forget the feel of Aerith's flesh bruising under the pressure of his fingers; impossible that he could have done such a thing, impossible that so much could have changed in such a short space of time; impossible that he could be the same man.

Rufus, perhaps sensing that Tseng's thoughts were no longer entirely with him, raised himself up on one elbow to look down into Tseng's face. "Shall I tell you what I wish?" he said. "I wish that Veld was dead."

Tseng felt his eyes go blank.

He didn't dare risk a quick, ill-considered reply. Too much was riding on the outcome.

'_You belong to me now'. _That was what Rufus was really saying. Or asking. '_You belong to me, don't you? Swear that you're mine, mine entirely, mine alone…'_

It would have been easy to make him happy by telling him what he wanted to hear. _Yes, I am yours now, yours and no one else's... _Tseng was, momentarily, tempted.

But the moment quickly passed – for Tseng was still, first and foremost and always, a Turk; that would never change, and his duty towards the future President required that he swiftly disabuse the young man of the usual fond illusions lovers liked to cherish. Neither of them could afford to deny reality. There were many things he would give up for Rufus; anything that was his to give, he would give. But the duties he owed to others could not be sacrificed. That needed to be made clear right from the start. For how would Rufus learn to honour his own obligations, if Tseng did not set him an example?

So Tseng, after thinking it over carefully, replied, "You agree with your father about something, then."

Rufus flinched. "Did you_ have_ to say that?"

His arms had slackened their grip. Tseng seized the opportunity to roll away off the bed, allowing the momentum to carry him out of the bedroom and through the office to the bathroom, where he swiftly showered, taking care to keep his hair dry. In the sitting area the cat lay curled up on his suit jacket, purring. Tseng shooed it away. He had pulled on his trousers, and was fastening the buttons of his shirt with practiced speed, when Rufus called from the bedroom, "Tseng – "

Tseng walked to the bedroom doorway and stood there, knotting his tie. Rufus, who hadn't moved from the bed, glared up at him.

"Listen to me," said Tseng. "Everything I am, I owe to Commander Veld. You know that I intend to do whatever it takes to save him. Don't get in my way, Rufus, unless you want to make me regret what's happened between us. If I have to die for him, I will. You need to understand this now."

"Oh, believe me, I know exactly how you feel about Veld. That's why I wish he was dead," said Rufus sullenly. "I'm afraid he'll take you away from me. One way or another."

"Many things will take me away from you," Tseng replied. "I have a job to do. And you need to clean yourself up and put some clothes on. Cavour will be here in twenty minutes."

"Send him away."

"I can't keep sending them away. I have to get back to work. The world doesn't stand still for anyone. Not even you."

"Stop talking down to me. I'm not a child."

Tseng wisely made no reply, but continued to get dressed, and after a few moments Rufus dragged himself off the bed and went to shower. Tseng borrowed the comb from the top shelf of Rufus' locker, neatened his hair, and tied it back with the bootlace. Next he stripped the bed, made it up fresh, took the old sheets into the kitchen and put them in the washing machine. Then he hunted through the cupboards to see if he could find something edible. He was ravenous.

When Rufus reappeared he was wearing his layered white suit over a black turtleneck – _his armour_, as Tseng thought of it. His expression was aloof, and slightly wounded. In the haughty tone he normally reserved for communicating his displeasure to Tseng's underlings, he said, "Tell me, has my father realized that I'm missing yet?"

"Not as far as I know."

"When was the last time he asked after me?"

"He asks about you every time I see him, Rufus."

"You are such a bad liar. It's lucky for you he never feels the urge to see me for himself, isn't it?"

The willful lock of hair had fallen into Rufus' eyes. Tseng lifted a hand to tuck it behind his ear, but Rufus twitched his head away, and Tseng's hand fell back to his side.

"Tseng," said Rufus, "What are you going to tell the others?"

"About what?" asked Tseng.

He was expecting Rufus to say, '_about us'_, but Rufus surprised him. "About the mako."

"I – haven't decided yet."

"I see. Tseng…" Rufus faltered.

"Yes?"

"There are things we need to discuss. We have to talk about the mako. And some other matters. Company business. Are you – I mean, when are you coming back?"

Tseng fought down the urge to smile. "Soon," he promised. "Tonight."

"What time is it now?"

Tseng glanced at his watch. "Ten to seven. Do you want some breakfast? I could teach you how to make an omelette."

"No, I'm not hungry. Tseng…."

"Yes?"

"Would you die for me?"

"Yes, I would."

"Because it's your job?"

Tseng allowed the smile he had been holding back to flower. "I think you know that's not the only reason."

"Perhaps I do." An answering smile began to steal across Rufus' face. "But I like to hear you say it." Moving forwards, he reached out to lace his fingers behind Tseng's neck and pull him closer – but instead of kissing him, as Tseng had anticipated, Rufus leaned into him so that their foreheads touched and their eyelashes brushed against each other. When Rufus spoke again, his breath, smelling sweetly of peppermint toothpaste, filled Tseng's mouth and nostrils. "We're the same height," he said, sounding surprised. "What did you do to me? Did I grow overnight?"

"I'm wearing boots," Tseng pointed out. "And you're barefoot. I'm shorter than you, and have been for several years now."

"No? Really?"

"By about an inch. Have you never noticed?"

While they were talking, Rufus's fingers had been busy at the back of Tseng's head, undoing the knot in the bootlace. Now it came loose; silky blackness fell around Tseng's shoulders. Rufus made a small sound, a half-purr, half-chuckle that sent a wave of heat flushing over Tseng's skin, and leaned in even closer to laugh in his ear, "Why do you always look so tall, then?"

And then, giving Tseng no chance to answer what was, in any case, an absurd question, Rufus kissed him.

From far away came a rasping noise, the sound of the bunker's outer door sliding open. Tseng and Rufus sprang apart; Rufus turned away, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, while Tseng, conscious only of the fact that he could not allow himself to be seen in such disarray, bolted for the bathroom and shut the door. Bracing his hands against the wall, he let his head drop between his shoulders and took long, deep breaths.

He could hear men's voices talking in the sitting room: Cavour, asking where the Boss was, and Rufus' cool reply.

Somewhere, on the very farthest shore of his consciousness, there was a little voice struggling to make itself heard. _You know this is impossible, don't you? _it cried. But it was drowned out by the beating of his heart.

* * *

_I hope you all had a lovely Christmas. As always, thanks for reading._


	41. Find the Mortal World Enough

**CHAPTER 41: FIND THE MORTAL WORLD ENOUGH  
**_**In which Reno is sceptical, Rufus has designs on the stock market, and Tseng doesn't need much persuading**_

_**

* * *

**_

At eleven o'clock that Thursday morning, Reno was sitting at his desk contemplating the pile of very highly classified documents he was supposed to be cross-referencing and wondering whether anyone would notice if he put them straight through the shredder instead, when his phone rang.

"My office, stat," said Tseng.

_Shit_, thought Reno,_ can he read minds by remote sensing now?_

When he opened Tseng's door, he found the other three senior Turks, Roz, Rude, and Knox, had also been summoned. All the chairs had been taken, so he propped his backside on the windowsill and rested his shoulders against the cold plate glass, arms folded.

With more than his usual briskness, Tseng began, "Regarding the incident in the badlands yesterday afternoon – "

_Whoa, hang on, _thought Reno, w_hat incident?_

" – I have raised the matter with the Vice-President. He has a theory, and bearing in mind the promise I made to you, Rosalind - "

_Promise? What promise? What's he on about?_

" – I feel it is my duty to share his thoughts on the matter with you, bearing in mind that it is, at this point, nothing more than a theory…"

Reno listened with mounting disbelief as Tseng's exposition continued. What had happened in the Badlands yesterday to make him like this? Did he have amnesia or something? Had he got hit on the head? Couldn't he hear what he sounded like? Like one of those cheap AVALANCHE flyers they used to pay people to tear down, a gil a dozen. Was he seriously expecting them to believe that this was some spanking new theory the V.P. had cooked up all by his clever self, when any moron with half a brain cell could see that it was nothing but stale old eco-terrorist propaganda, rehashed with a few fancy new scientific words that did nothing to disguise the taste?

If the entire department hadn't known for a fact that their leader possessed zero sense of humour when it came to practical jokes, Reno would have sworn Tseng was trying to pull their legs.

Something wasn't right here. It was more than just this crap about the mako. Tseng himself was off, jumpy and restless, and his eyes were too bright, like he'd been taking too much hyper; like that was something Tseng would ever do. He was talking too fast, too, as if he couldn't wait to get this meeting over and done with and get them, his trusted subordinates, out of his face. And he wouldn't meet Reno's eyes – or any of their eyes, but Reno's especially.

What the hell had Rufus been saying to him? And why the hell did Tseng still listen?

_Fuck a duck, _Reno sighed to himself, _you'd think by now the Boss would have wised up. He's got a blind spot a mile wide when it comes to the our little golden chocobo. Which means yours truly's gotta keep my eyes wide open for the both of us._

Rosalind said, "So that's what you were discussing with him last night?"

"Yes," said Tseng, needlessly rearranging some papers on his desk.

"Did you get any sleep at all?" she demanded.

"Don't worry about me."

"So…" Knox said slowly, "According to the V.P.'s theory, what's happening in the badlands is like… like when you cut off the blood supply to a finger?"

"Or maybe more like frostbite?" Rosalind suggested.

"Hunh," Rude grunted in agreement.

Knox glanced over his shoulder at Reno. His face looked as confused as Reno felt. But the other three – Rude, Roz, and the Boss – they were eyeballing one another like they understood each other pretty well.

The realization that something had been kept from him – something important that the others were in on – goaded Reno to protest, "Boss, just what the fuck is going on here? I thought Rufus had cut all his ties with AVALANCHE."

And Rude – Rude! - turned round in his chair and hissed at him – hissed! – "Shut _up_, Reno," which was so not what Reno had expected that he was, momentarily, silenced.

More surprisingly still, Tseng then said, "No, no, Reno's right. He needs to know the full story. Rosalind, when we're done here, I want you brief him, and Knox too. But don't let it go any further. This is to be kept strictly between the five of us. I can't stress that too strongly. Understood?"

Roz and Rude nodded. Knox glanced again at Reno, and then said, "Uh… sure thing, Boss. So… uh… Do you want us to look into it?"

Tseng nailed him with a steely glare. "Absolutely not. It is, I hope, obvious to all of you that this is highly sensitive information, and in any case, it's merely a theory. I gave Roz and Rude my word that I would let them know what I found out; that's the only reason I'm telling you this now. Don't make me wish I hadn't. If I find out anything concrete, I'll update you, but until then we won't speak of it again, even amongst ourselves. I trust that's clear?"

Tseng was fidgeting with his pen. He never fidgeted. This was all so weird.

"Well then," he went on when nobody spoke, "We can consider the subject closed. Thank you for your attention. Now get back to work, all of you."

As soon as they were out in the corridor, Tseng shut his door with a 'don't disturb me again' firmness that they all recognized. Rosalind said, "Come on, boys, let's find somewhere we can talk," and headed for the elevator. Rude had already slipped away. Reno and Knox were left standing side by side. Turning to Reno, Knox said with a puzzled shrug, "I guess it's carry on as normal, then?"

"Stop dawdling," called Rosalind.

Reno gave Knox a dark look. "Man, when was the last time _anything_ was normal around here?"

* * *

"It was Bugenhagen's theory, originally," Rufus pointed out much later that night, as he lay in Tseng's arms on the narrow, rumpled bunkbed.

"Still, it's only a theory," Tseng replied.

"Is it? You felt it. You tell me."

"What I felt…"

Tseng would have preferred to blank from his mind what it had felt like, that terrible cold ache and that nameless, leaden fear sinking in his stomach like the inexplicable unease he used to experience in Sephiroth's presence, when the sound of the man's voice alone could make his hair stand on end.

"What I meant," he said after a moment, "Is that it hasn't been proven."

"To whose satisfaction? A theory may be proven, and yet that proof may not be widely recognized or generally accepted. Which is, I might add, a state of affairs we should aim to prolong for as long as possible. Ignorance is bliss. The last thing we want is to provoke a mass panic. Not before we've put in place the necessary measures to save the company."

"You have a plan?" asked Tseng.

Rufus laughed at the expression on his face. "Don't look so surprised. It is my inheritance, after all. And this is _my_ planet. Did you really I would just stand by and let him destroy them? I have the whole thing worked out," Rufus assured him.

.

His plan was for the company to diversify out of mako.

Through all those months gone by of sullen sulking, of pretending not to care about what Tseng cared for because he believed that Tseng didn't care about him, didn't see him as anything more than a job to be done, a future president to be groomed, a big squeaky cog in a bigger machine whom the Chief Turk must dutifully oil … All that time, to ward off boredom and despair, he'd been busy elaborating the plan in his mind, right down to the fine print, the smallest details – a plan which, he now admitted, he had always intended to offer to Tseng as a gift, or, if necessary, an enticement, when he felt that the time was propitious.

His plan was for Shinra to diversify out of mako by establishing an effective monopoly over every other source of power on the planet. Oil. Gas. Coal. Solar. Wind. Hydro. Geothermal. Everything.

Tseng was temporarily robbed of speech.

Then he said, "It can't be done."

"I believe it can."

"Rufus, do you have any idea how hard we have to work simply to maintain our monopoly on mako alone? And you want to extend our reach to cover _everything_?"

"We do have the largest standing army on the planet," Rufus pointed out. "I would have thought that was half the battle, if you'll forgive the pun."

"It can't be done," Tseng repeated.

"It _can_ be done. I know it can. And it _must_. Mako energy is too easy. If we wait until the general public wants to give it up of their own free will, we'll have passed the point of no return. We have to stop feeding their habit - by force, if necessary. And if we want to survive as a company and maintain our position in this world, we have to have something to offer in its place."

"Something? A moment ago it was everything."

"What I said, Tseng, is that we need to establish an _effective_ monopoly. It isn't necessary that we literally own _everything_, as long as we can _control_ it. We already own the means of delivery – the generating plants, the substations, the power lines. At the moment, therefore, we control the market not only because we control the source of the energy, but because we control access to the infrastructure. Our current monopoly is our strength, but could easily become our weakness. If we abandoned, or were forced to abandon, our reliance on mako, we could potentially be held to ransom by whoever controlled the alternative sources of energy. That's why we must take urgent steps to bring those sources under our control. Shinra has to diversify. Soon. Into at least two major carbon fuels, minimum, and two major renewable resources, if we're taking the long view."

"But what about the materia? We need it for military purposes; there's no substitute."

"Well, of course," said Rufus. "Retaining control of the mako is vital, obviously. But our priorities have to change. We can't keep wasting it on generating electricity. Tseng, listen – just suppose, for a moment, that Bugenhagen's theory is wrong and the mako isn't this planet's lifeblood. Let's say it's just another non-renewable resource, like oil. Even if that were the case, it would still run out eventually, and sooner rather than later at the rate we're using it. What do you think is going to happen to this company then? What are we going to trade in when the mako wells run dry? How much money has my old man invested in developing alternative fuels? I'll tell you: none. Not one gil. And why should he? It's going to be my problem, after all."

He paused rhetorically, and gave Tseng a brilliant smile before continuing, "Well, my father set me this conundrum, and like a good son I have bent my mind to the task and found the answer. According to every fairy tale I've ever read, this means I'm now entitled to claim my half of the kingdom." Rufus laughed at himself; then, suddenly earnest, he grasped Tseng by both wrists and exclaimed, "It _can_ be done. I know it can. If you help me. On my own I can't do anything, obviously, my current situation being what it is. But together we could make a start, you and I."

Tseng's objections evaporated in the heat of that blue gaze.

* * *

He knew he wasn't thinking straight. It was impossible to think straight when he was with Rufus. A red fog of desire clouded his reason, overwhelming him with the urge to say _"Yes,"_ to whatever the younger man asked for. And there was no denying it was an addictive sensation, that headlong rush into pleasure given and received. Tseng would be the last man to deny it….

But it was not the right state of mind in which to make vital decisions about the future direction of the company.

A few hours later, therefore, when he had returned to the office, he took some time to think Rufus's proposal over more carefully. Closing his door, he picked up his cup of coffee and stood with it by the window, looking down at the city. Poised on the edge of dawn, Midgar was a myriad of lights: the glowing corona of the reactors; the mosaic of bright yellow rectangles, large and small, that were the windows of homes and offices; the blue-tinted street-lamps; the headlights and taillights of cars moving in opposite streams, red versus white - and, hanging over it all, the effulgence of mako, green like poison.

If the Shinra Corporation did not diversify out of mako, it would, eventually, perish. That much was indisputable. But if Rufus's theory about the badlands was correct, then before Shinra collapsed those dead zones would have spread to cover half the planet, and the lights would have gone out all over Midgar.

If it was true –

In his bones, in his heart, the truth felt undeniable. But right now Tseng's intellect was not prepared to trust his gut instincts; they were too riotous, too impaired, too inflamed -

No.

It wasn't enough to want to make Rufus happy. Not nearly enough. That would be merely a form of egotism. He needed a better reason. He had to believe it was the right thing to do, not only for the company, but for Rufus himself - Rufus most of all. The boy's whole future was at stake here. To fall in with his schemes simply to indulge him would be a dereliction of duty, and would make a mockery of the faith Rufus had placed in his judgement.

Certainly it was an audacious plan, worthy of a true Shinra. If Rufus could pull this off, his Old Man's achievements would be dwarfed by comparison, and when future generations spoke of The Shinra, it would be the son, not the father, whom they meant.

Still not a sufficient justification.

All right, then_ - If_ Rufus could pull this off, the future of the company and all those who depended on it would be secure for decades, even centuries, to come. Moreover, unlike the Vice-President's previous schemes, this one posed no threat to the current establishment, and therefore there could be no conflict of interest for the Chief Turk in lending it his aid. In fact, Tseng was fairly confident that when the Old Man came to know about it, he would heartily approve… Of Rufus's ambition, if of nothing else. It might even promote the growth of a better mutual understanding between father and son, and _that_ was definitely in the company's best interests.

Working on the plan would be good for Rufus, he decided. It would give him something constructive to occupy his mind and keep him focused on the business. That alone, Tseng decided, might be reason enough to go ahead with it.

.

The next afternoon he arrived unannounced at the bunker to find Tys and Rufus sitting in the office behind the lounge, playing battleships on two of the surveillance monitors. The cat was with them, tucked up fast asleep against the warmth of a CPU.

"Away you go," said Tseng to the cinnamon-haired Turk, tipping him out of his chair. "I need to talk to the Vice-President."

The door had barely closed behind him before Rufus' hands were on Tseng's thighs. Gently, firmly, Tseng removed them. "You need to learn some patience," he said. "First, we talk."

"About what?"

"Your plan for world domination," said the Chief Turk drily, occupying the seat Tys had vacated.

For a moment Rufus looked as if he wasn't sure how to take this. Then he chuckled, "Oh, that's good, Tseng. I like it. In my own mind I've been calling it my corporate strategy, but that sounds so prosaic by comparison. Look, since we're here, there's something I want to show you." He turned back to the keyboard, typed in a few commands, and swiveled the monitor round so that Tseng could see what was on the screen. "I think you'll find this interesting. Professionally, I mean."

It was a line graph – or rather, a graph of many lines, each a different colour, all following an almost identical curve. After studying it for a moment or two, Tseng understood that these lines represented the movements, over the last three years, of the price of various moribund carbon fuel companies on the Midgar Stock Exchange. He read the names aloud: "Mythril Madouge Incorporated. Corel Industrial Carbons. Southern Mideelian Oil and Gas – "

"See how the upward curve is becoming steeper?" said Rufus. "Obviously it's all relative, because those stocks were down in the bargain basement to begin with – but look, SoMiCo and C.I.C. have practically doubled in the last year alone." Rufus sat back, folded his arms, and gave Tseng a challenging look as he added, "I'm not the only one running projections, it seems."

The back of Tseng's neck had begun to prickle, the way it always did when he sensed a threat to the company drawing near.

"Don't you see this is exactly what I was trying to warn you about?" Rufus slapped the glass screen with the back of his hand. "Someone, or some group, is snatching this opportunity from under our noses. If we don't start protecting these resources for our own use right now, we're going to find, when it's too late, that we are quite literally out of power."

"Your father must know about this," said Tseng.

"I'm not so sure. Look." Rufus keyed in another command, and a new, much more intricate graph appeared on the screen, showing all the movements of all the stocks on the MidEx over the last year. Amid those dramatic peaks and jagged troughs, the gentle upward curve of the carbon fuel shares appeared to flatline.

"You have to go looking for it to find it," said Rufus. "I looked because I was curious. I don't think he cares. As far as he's concerned, if people want to trade in worthless shares, it's no business of his to stop them. He's grown complacent. Shinra's been unrivalled for too long."

"Do you know who's buying these shares?" Tseng asked him.

"Ah. I was hoping you could find out."

"That's easy enough."

"And then convince them to sell."

Tseng missed a beat. "To you?" he asked.

"No, no, that would defeat the purpose. I don't want to start by buying up shares in public companies; that would be too… public. No, to begin with we should focus on the smaller privately-owned companies, family businesses that are already in some kind of financial trouble. What I want you to do is persuade whoever is buying these public stocks to dump them on the MidEx. Make them understand that Shinra isn't too happy with their little cartel. That should bring the price down across the board, which should make the private companies even more eager to sell. But Tseng – " Rufus laid a hand on his sleeve. "They musn't suspect my involvement, obviously. You have to let them think you're putting the squeeze on them for my old man."

"You know, you should let me tell him about these ideas of yours," said Tseng gently.

The blue eyes startled. "No, don't!" Rufus exclaimed, sounding, and looking, just for a moment, like the little boy Tseng remembered.

"I think your father would be impressed."

Rufus laughed, but it was not a pleasant sound. "You really have no idea what he's like, do you? If he found out about my plans, I can promise you one of two things would happen. Either he'd like my idea so much he'd steal it, or he'd laugh himself stupid and then forbid it. Either way, it would be taken out of my hands and ruined. I've worked hard on this plan, Tseng, and I'm not letting him have it. I want to show him… I want to do it _my _way. Promise me you won't tell him. Please."

The hand that lingered on Tseng's sleeve had tightened into a fist. Tseng laid his own hand over it and said, "You do understand, though, don't you, that if we start playing with the stock market he is bound to find out? Even if no one reported to him what we were doing, which is extremely unlikely, he has people he pays to watch the MidEx. These shares have been creeping up gradually, which may be why they've passed under the radar, though I'd still be surprised to learn that he didn't know. If they suddenly crashed, he would certainly be told. It isn't the kind of thing that would pass him by unnoticed."

"I should hope not. He _is_ my father, after all. But it will be interesting to see how he reacts. Don't you think?"

Tseng looked closely into Rufus' face. "You're asking me to lie to my President."

"No. Not lie. I'm just asking you to do something for me, Tseng, which he doesn't need to know about. You don't have to refer to him for approval for every single action you undertake, do you? You must have some discretionary powers. What I'm asking you to do doesn't go against the company's interests, and it won't hurt him in any way. But if you don't want to do it – "

Tseng's hand closed more firmly around Rufus's fist. "Listen to me," he said softly. "You know I would do almost anything for you. Your welfare is close to my heart. That's why, when I think you're wrong, I will tell you so. I think you're wrong now. However, as you say, what you're asking me to do for you is also in the company's interests. So I will respect your wishes. For now. If your father doesn't ask, then I won't tell; I can promise you that much. But I won't lie outright to him. And if he should happen to find out, or work it out, and he forbids you from taking this plan any further, then that's how it's going to be. As long as he's the President, I take my orders from him."

Rufus' mouth twisted. "Except when it comes to Veld, apparently."

Tseng merely looked at him, holding his gaze in a silent reprimand. It was a look he had honed to perfection over the years on Reno and Skeeter and Tys. Rufus knew perfectly well that some topics were not open for discussion. Commander Veld was one, Aerith another.

Rufus dropped his eyes, and, letting go of Tseng's sleeve, pressed his clenched fist against his forehead. "Nngh," he groaned. "You're so stubborn. Why is everyone so _stubborn_? Why does my father have to be so blind?_ I _can see what needs to be done. Why can't _he? _ The reckoning's coming up behind him like a sword hanging over his head, but he never even looks up. If I were the one running this company – "

"Your time will come," Tseng interrupted, intending to strangle this line of thinking at birth. "You're young. You can wait."

"You still don't seem to understand, Tseng, that time is something else we're running out of."

"Nevertheless, you need to learn to be patient."

There was a long, charged pause.

"Patient?" Rufus echoed.

His voice had dropped an octave, and the look in his eyes made Tseng's pulse beat faster.

"I - don't like that word," said Rufus slowly.

The climate in the room had shifted, the air between them grown suddenly heavy, humid, with desire.

"Patience… is a virtue," Tseng replied, his thick tongue stumbling over the syllables.

"Oh, it is, is it?" An undertone of laughter was creeping into Rufus' voice, spoiling his attempt to sound stern. "I'm not so sure. And I don't think _you_ entirely believe it, either."

Leaning forward, he took hold of Tseng's tie and gave it a sharp tug. The chair Tseng was sitting in rolled forward on its wheels until his knee was trapped between Rufus' own. The little cat, spooked by the rattle of the chair, jumped off the desk and ran away into the bedroom.

"I don't think _I'm_ the unvirtuous one," said Rufus primly. Bracing one hand one Tseng's knee, he wound the tie around his knuckles and pulled Tseng's head towards him, leaning forward as he did so until his mouth was brushing Tseng's ear. "I'm not an old man like you," he whispered. "You can't wait, can't you?"

"No," Tseng confessed. His hands were already working their way inside Rufus' clothing, and he, too, was laughing under his breath.

"Neither can I, to be honest," said Rufus.

They went into the sitting area, double-locked the door, pulled off each other's clothes and began to make love, and gradually their awareness of their surroundings faded away: the harsh strip lighting, the edge of the table digging into Tseng's knee, the rough fabric of the sofa abrading his skin, and the creaking of its broken springs, were no longer seen or felt or heard. At some point they fell off the sofa, but, submerged in one another, did not care. Time slowed down to the point where it seemed to stand still, waiting on their pleasure. But of course this, too, was an illusion: the world continued to progress at its usual pace while they were busy striving after that blinding moment of eternity, and when they finally peeled apart, sweaty and satisfied, and Tseng reached for his PHS and looked at the display, he saw that Aviva would be with them in less than half an hour.

"I'm going to shower," said Tseng. "You tidy up."

"I'll do it in a minute," Rufus replied, getting up and trailing after him.

"You can't come in. She's going to be here soon."

"I'll just watch. I want to be where you are."

Tseng turned the water to cool and stepped into the spray, holding his hair away from his neck to keep it dry. Rufus lifted a snowy white, brushed-cotton bathrobe from the hook on the door, put it on, and sat down on the peach toilet seat. "Tseng," he said, "There's something I've been meaning to ask you for a long time now."

"Go on."

"What made you grow your hair?"

A brief pause. Then - "Vanity."

Rufus smiled appreciatively. "As I suspected. Though most people would think you were being evasive. Tseng, can I tell you something?"

"Tell me, and we'll see."

"When I look at you, it never occurs to me that you're Wuteng. I mean of course I know, objectively, that you are, but I literally cannot see it. To me you're just – Tseng. I can't remember a time when you weren't in my life. In fact, you're my earliest memory."

"Is that so?" Tseng's tone carried just the faintest hint of a suggestion that Rufus might be spinning him a myth.

"No, it's true," Rufus defended himself. "I don't expect you would remember, but you came to our house once – our old house, the one we lived in before we moved to the penthouse. I suppose you must have come there with Veld, but he doesn't feature in the memory. Only you. Remember that black and white chequered floor we had, how the maids polished it until it was like a mirror? You walked across it like you were walking on water – like the reflections of your shoes were stones that came up to meet your feet. You didn't make any noise at all. And I remember thinking to myself, 'That man is a cat.'"

Tseng turned off the water and stepped out from the shower, reaching for a towel to wrap round his waist as he said disbelievingly, " 'Man'? I couldn't have been any older than thirteen."

"But I was only three. You were a man to me."

"And you remembered me because you thought I looked like a cat?"

"That's not what I said," Rufus replied, a little impatiently. "I said I thought you _were_ a cat. Disguised as a man. Or maybe I only wished you were. I used to love those stories."

Tseng led the way out of the bathroom; Rufus followed, still wearing the white bathrobe, and settled himself on the arm of the sofa to watch the Turk get dressed. "What's your earliest memory, Tseng?"

Tseng thought for a moment. "Being in the elevator with the Commander. He was holding my hand. I remember pressing the button, and then looking at my reflection in the brass plate. And I remember feeling… safe."

"How old were you?"

"I don't know. Four, possibly." Tseng bent over as he spoke, gathering up the pieces of Rufus' suit and bundling them into a ball. "I like to think it's my memory of the day he found me, but it could have been any day. Here," he tossed the ball of clothing to Rufus, "Put those on."

Rufus caught the bundle against his chest, but made no move to get dressed. "I remember when I was four years old, sitting on my father's knee, once," he said. "He was showing me an architect's blueprint of our building. He asked me what I thought of it. All I wanted to know was where his office was. He pointed at the top and I remember being very worried by that. It seemed so high off the ground. I was afraid… I don't know of what, exactly. That he might be attacked by enemies and not be able to escape. He said – " Rufus broke off to make a noise that was as much a laugh as a sneer – "He said that Shinra _had_ no enemies. Then I said, 'But Mr Palmer told me flying saucers can attack from space.'"

Tseng looked up from tying his bootlaces . "Palmer told you that?" he asked, surprised.

"Oh, I can't remember. I expect I was probably lying. Anything to be the centre of attention. I was determined to make my old man see just how clever I was. So I told him he ought to have an escape route put in, just in case."

"That was a sensible suggestion, for a four year old."

"Do you think so? Unfortunately, my father didn't share your opinion. He laughed at me and told me I was simple-minded. Escape routes were for losers, he said. And then he said he would have one put in anyway, just for me, and he'd label it L for loser so I'd know it was mine."

Rufus delivered this punchline deadpan, as if he were telling some good joke against himself, but Tseng wasn't fooled. "Escape routes are not for losers," he assured Rufus as he strapped on his shoulder harness, tightening the buckles. "Dying is for losers. Escape routes are for survivors who live to fight another day."

His reward was a rueful smile.

Fully dressed now, Tseng crossed to where the young man sat, white suit still bundled on his lap, and laid a hand on the nape of his neck, feeling the tension in the sinews there. Spreading his fingers, he slipped his hand inside the bathrobe and ran it over the mass of scar tissue, down the knobbed curve of Rufus' spine, to rest on the small of his back. The skin there was smooth and warm; Tseng was very conscious of the coldness of his hand, the callouses on his palm and fingertips. Rufus shivered, and leaned slightly backwards, resting his weight against the tensile strength of the Turk's shooting arm.

"My old man was always saying things like that," he told Tseng . "And there are times when I wonder if perhaps he isn't right. A father ought to know his own son, don't you think? Why did it take me so long to get the message? Maybe I _am_ simple-minded. I ought to have realized much earlier than I did that he was planning to load the dice against me. However…" he shrugged, and the bunched muscles in his back rippled slightly beneath Tseng's fingers, "If I can't beat him at his own game, then I'd say I deserve to be remembered as the lesser man. Wouldn't you agree?"

"You are not the lesser man."

"Well, that remains to be seen."

Tseng longed to respond with something definitively reassuring, but nothing came at once to mind. Wordlessly he rubbed the heel of his hand against the angle of Rufus' shoulder blade until he felt the knots of tension begin to yield. Then he said, "You really need to put your clothes on now."

"I'll shower," said Rufus, getting to his feet.

He was halfway across the room when Tseng thought of what he wanted to say. "You know, Rufus, Commander Veld used to call me thick all the time. He did it to toughen me up. He'd clip me round the ear and swear blind I'd never make a Turk because I was too stupid. And too sentimental."

Rufus turned round. "That was different," he said.

"How?" asked Tseng, half-expecting Rufus to reply, _because the Commander wasn't really your father._

But what Rufus said was, "Because Veld didn't really mean it."


	42. The Appearance of Normality

**CHAPTER 42: THE APPEARANCE OF NORMALITY  
**_****__An eventful chapter, in which Reno and Rude talk business, Tseng is taken by surprise, and Aviva saves the day_

_**

* * *

**_

Whatever Reno might say, life on the 48th floor of the Shinra building continued, to all outward appearances, pretty much as it always had done. The hunt for AVALANCHE and the support materia did not – could not – take up all the Turks' time or even most of it. The usual jobs kept on landing in their in-trays, which was why Reno and Rude set off at dawn one morning for Sector Two, entered a mansion block, climbed six flights of stairs to the attic, and settled down for a long wait. Tseng had received a tip-off from one of their stoolies that a black market arms deal was to take place later that morning in the office building across the street, and the two of them were staking out its front door. Rude's job was to take the photographs and note the names of any faces he recognized. Reno's job was to guard their backs. Later in the day they would pick the suspects up. Two streets away, Cavour and Knox were carrying out the same mission on the roof of another apartment block, keeping their eyes on the office building's back entrance.

The Weapons Division of the Shinra Corporation had long since ceased to account for more than a tiny fraction of the company's sales, but the Old Man was attached to his mecha for sentimental reasons, and took any attempt by outsiders to nibble away at their profits as a personal insult. Scarlet's more egregious creations – the Black Widow or the Master Blade, for example – did not in fact attract much attention from the illegal arms dealers, simply because the market for such massive, high-energy assault weapons was almost non-existent, especially since the collapse of Wutai. The real money lay in ripping off personal and home security items, such as the simpler Saucers or the various automatic Heads. Only last month the Complaints department had been inundated with calls about defective Bee Saucers exploding in people's faces and electrocuting pets. The Turks had swiftly traced the source of the problem to a group of counterfeiters operating out of the abandoned mineworks south of the Zolom Marshes. Charlie and Rude had blown up their underground factory, and the company had issued a public warning reminding consumers to check for the authentic Shinra trademark before making a purchase.

In the Board Meeting that followed, Reeve had pushed for compensation for all the victims of the counterfeit Saucers, as a gesture of goodwill. Scarlet had retaliated by pointing out that to do so would merely encourage people to keep buying cheap knock-offs. Her argument had carried the day.

The attic ceiling of the stakeout was sloping and low. Rude and Reno had to stoop so as not to bump their heads against the rafters. Rude had brought a folding stool, which he set up beside a tinted fanlight commanding a clear view of the other side of the street. His binoculars were fitted with a tiny digital camera. From time to time he put them to his eyes, but so far he'd seen no activity worth recording.

Reno sat on the floor, his back resting against the exposed brickwork. He lit a cigarette, and took out his EMR. Turned to its lowest setting, the rod gave off a low, annoying buzz, like a wasp trapped inside a jar. Holding it about an inch away from his skin, Reno moved it slowly up and down the length of his forearm, grinning as all the tiny gingery hairs stood quivering on end.

"Don't do that," rasped Rude. "It's creepy."

"Don't watch then. I like it. Gives me goosepimples."

Rude looked as if he was about to say something, changed his mind, searched through his jacket for a stick of peppermint gum, unwrapped it, put the silver foil in his top pocket, folded the gum into his mouth, and began to chew.

Reno said, "Late last night I got a call from that chick who owns the place where I was staying a couple of weeks ago. You know, above the takeout in Tonberry Street? She had some unexpected visitors yesterday. Scared the crap out of the guy who's living there now. They turned the place upside down."

"Public Safety?" Rude wondered.

"She said they were wearing civvies, but I'd put money on it being Heidegger's men. Scarlet wouldn't hire outsiders to go through our dirty laundry. It'd piss the Old Man off too much."

"That's you, me, Roz and Cavs in the last ten days," said Rude.

"Yeah. You'd think they'd have worked out by now that we none of us left forwarding addresses."

"They're looking for something to prove we're in contact with the Chief."

"Oh gosh, Rude, you think so? Jeepers, I sure hope you remembered to hide that holdall full of gil and that thank you note from AVALANCHE before you came out today."

Rude chuckled obligingly, and then asked him, "Have you told the Boss yet?"

"Haven't seen him to tell."

Reno's cigarette had burnt down to the filter. He stubbed it out on his tongue and dropped the butt into a knothole in the floorboards. Rude turned away, raising his binoculars to scan the rooftop opposite.

"Tseng seems to be spending a lot of time with the V.P.," said Reno. "He took two of my shifts this week. Not that I'm complaining."

"They have a lot to discuss," said Rude.

"You mean that AVALANCHE crap about the mako and the dead zones spreading? What's that really all about, d'you think, Rude? I mean, the V.P.'s not a scientist, is he? If all that stuff was true, wouldn't the eggheads in Hojo's department have said something?"

"Don't be stupid," said Rude. "If it is true, it's too big to talk about."

"But wouldn't _we_ know?"

"We don't know everything," Rude reminded him. "Not even Tseng gets told everything."

Reno took another cigarette from the pack. For a while he toyed with it, flipping it over and under his fingers like a playing card, before pulling his mako lighter from his pocket. He stared at the blue flame thoughtfully.

"Thirty years is a hell of a long time," he said. "I reckon I'll be dead of something else by then."

"You didn't feel it," said Rude. "I did."

"What was it like?"

"Like a slow brain freeze."

Reno tried to imagine the sensation. "D'you think Tseng believes it's true?"

"_I_ believe it's true," Rude replied. A movement in the street below caught his eye, and he turned away to train his binoculars through the window. "There they are," he said. "Finally."

While Rude took photos and made mental notes, Reno sat on the floor in the corner, his long legs stretched out in front of him, blowing smoke rings and ruminating silently. Fifteen minutes passed before Rude put down the binoculars and twisted round on his stool to look at his partner.

"I just don't trust him, you know?" said Reno.

Rude was startled. "Tseng?"

"You dipstick. I mean the V.P."

"Why would he lie?"

"Fuck, let's see. To turns us against the Old Man? To manipulate us into doing what he wants? Because he's bored? Or maybe to mess with Tseng's head? You know how that's always been a hobby of his. He's been trying to get between us and the Boss for years. Divide and conquer."

Rude sat quietly for a while, chewing his gum and thinking it over. Then he said, "Rufus is sharp – "

"Yeah, so sharp we'll cut ourselves if we're not careful."

"Hunh. I meant intelligent. And you have to admit he looks up to Tseng. Respects him. That counts for something in my book. And Tseng… it's gotta be hard for him sometimes, Reno. All of us waiting on him to make the decisions. I can see why he'd take the V.P. into his confidence. They've known each other a long time. And Rufus wants what we want. To finish off AVALANCHE." Rude's throat sounded hoarse by the time he came to the end of this speech.

Reno scratched his head with his EMR. "Yeah, well… I still think he's kind of a little shit at heart."

"But he's_ our_ little shit now," Rude rasped.

"I got my eye on him," said Reno, laying his finger along his nose. "That's all I'm saying."

.

That evening, down in the bunker, Tseng and Rufus sat side by side in front of the computer, studying the files Rufus had put together and mentally roughing out a time-scale. Timing, Tseng observed, was the key factor. They would need to take things slowly if they were not to spook the market; thus the sooner they made a start, the better. To have any chance of success Rufus' plan was going to require guile, total secrecy, some strong-arm tactics, a certain amount of good old-fashioned chocobo trading, and the changing hands of hefty amounts of gil. The usual Shinra way of doing business, in other words.

Tseng thought he could handle that.

Rufus asked him, "What are you going to tell the others?" and Tseng replied, "Until you're set free, as little as possible."

His team had already sacrificed more than he had any right to expect. For the Commander's sake they were prepared to compromise their loyalty and had put their jobs, their lives, at risk. He did not think they would be willing to stick their necks out even further for Rufus Shinra. Nor would he ask them to. He needed their active cooperation, not their grudging obedience.

Any scheme put forward by Rufus would immediately seem suspect to them, especially once they learnt it was being implemented without the President's knowledge or approval. For the time being, therefore, Tseng would let them think that the investigation into a possible carbon fuel cartel was an initiative he himself had originated. Any uneasiness he felt at lying to his Turks – or, to be more exact, at failing to be completely frank with them - he repressed by reminding himself that it was in the worthiest of causes, would promote the future welfare of the company, and was thus, ultimately, for their own benefit.

.

Two days after Tseng and Rufus had this conversation, at around ten a.m., Knox and Reno passed through a revolving door into the marbled lobby of one of Midgar's biggest brokerage houses. The sight of their suits so unnerved the receptionist that she spun round in her chair, grabbed the phone and buzzed for the Chairman without noticing that she'd knocked her open bottle of nail polish over her keyboard. One and half minutes later a plump, pink-faced, grandfatherly type in a tweed suit stepped out of the elevator. Knox and Reno exchanged glances. They both recognized him from the photos in his file, some of which were stills taken from the Honeybee Inn security tapes for (as Tseng liked to phrase it) insurance purposes. However, it looked as if the photos would not be needed today. Mr Chairman's hands were already trembling and his brow was beaded in sweat, and Reno hadn't even spoken to him yet.

"Don't be alarmed," said Knox, whose spectacles gave him a deceptively mild-mannered look, and made him appear to be the less threatening of the two. "Could we go to your office? We have some things we'd like to discuss."

By the time trading closed at end of the day, the price of shares in Mythril Madouge, SoMiCo, C.I.C., and half a dozen similar oil and gas companies had crashed through the MidEx floor to hit rock bottom.

"Damn," grinned Reno to Knox, as the two of them sat in the Turks' lounge, drinking beer and watching the stock market tickertape scroll across the bottom of the TV screen, "We're good."

Down in the bunker Rufus felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked up from his computer screen to smile at Tseng and say, "You've been busy. Good work. Though perhaps a touch over-dramatic. I should think you'll be getting a call from my father quite soon."

Rufus was right, as usual. Mid-morning of the following day found Tseng standing on the polished floor in front of President Shinra's airship-cockpit-bulkhead of a desk, trying to keep his mind focused as the President's blue eyes (so alike, so utterly different) bored into his own.

"Explain yourself," said the Old Man.

"I'll be interested to hear this," added Scarlet.

"Of course, sir. It has recently come to our attention that a consortium of investors was discretely amassing stocks in companies whose products represented a potential challenge to our operations. We've nipped the problem in the bud."

"I didn't authorize this action. Why wasn't I informed?"

"It's always been my understanding that I was to exercise my own discretion in identifying and eliminating threats to the company's interests. I acted accordingly."

"Kyah! You've overstepped the mark, Turk," Scarlet sneered.

Tseng ignored her. Addressing himself to the President, he said, "If you don't want us to act on our own initiative, you have only to say the word, sir."

The Old Man drummed his fingers. Scarlet glared at Tseng. She no longer made any effort to hide her hostility. Putting on a false front had never been something that came easily to her, and perhaps she did not fear the Turks enough any more to feel that it was necessary.

_Bad sign_, thought Tseng.

The Old Man puffed air through pursed lips. "Hmmph. Well. Report?"

"It's with your P.A., sir."

"Got the names?"

Tseng removed a piece of paper from his breast pocket and handed it up. The President took a pencil from his desk tidy and ran down the list. Suddenly he jabbed the paper, piercing it with the point of the lead. "This bastard," he snarled. "He's fucked with me before. Veld and I had to teach him a lesson down in Junon – god, when was that, Scarlet? Must be thirty years ago."

"That was before my time," she sighed.

It was the wrong thing to say. The Old Man gave her a long stare, and the sadness of nostalgia came into his beaky, jowly face.

_He and Veld were friends once_, thought Tseng. _Brothers, almost. There was a bond there. So how has it come to this?_

The President visibly shook himself (_like an old dog getting back on its feet_, though Tseng) and tossed the paper, pencil and all, down to his Chief Turk's waiting hands.

"I want you personally to make sure that sonofabitch never walks again," he told Tseng. "He can be a warning to the others."

.

"I don't like it," said Rufus, pacing the carpet.

"It's your plan," Tseng reminded him.

"My plan doesn't require this."

"The possibility was always there. You knew that."

"This action is unnecessary."

"That's debatable. And also irrelevant."

"It's a waste of your talents. Send somebody else."

Tseng raised an eyebrow. "I have my orders."

"You're the boss. Delegate." Rufus was losing a little of his imperious tone; this sounded less like a demand, more like a plea.

"I can't do that. And I don't want to. I need to get out from behind that desk occasionally."

"But I know this man!" Rufus exclaimed. "I used to go snowboarding with his daughter. He hires his bodyguards from the Fujeos. They're animals."

Tseng snorted a laugh down his nose, and was seized by a fit of coughing.

"What?" Rufus demanded. "Stop it. You know I hate it when you laugh at me."

"You think I'll be outclassed, is that it?"

"I'd say it's a certainty, old man." As he said this, Rufus threw a punch that caught Tseng lightly on the left shoulder. What happened next was a bit of a blur. Tseng's hard fingers closed around his fist; his arm was forced up; an elbow knocked the breath from his ribs, pain burst in his throat, and then his feet were kicked out from under him and the next thing he knew he was lying on his back with Tseng's knees pinning him to the carpet.

"Take that back," Tseng ordered.

"Make me," Rufus gasped.

"I thought I just did."

"Oh, you'll have to try harder than that, old man – " Tensing all the muscles in his gut, Rufus heaved upwards, cracking his forehead against the bridge of Tseng's nose and throwing him sideways. In a moment their positions were reversed: Tseng lay face down on the floor, Rufus' knee digging into the small of his back, and all the tendons in his neck stood out as Rufus pulled hard on his ponytail.

"Nice move," Tseng grunted.

"Thank you. I have had some good teachers."

"Could you let go now? This is rather painful."

"Do you seriously think I'm going to fall for that one?"

"Unh," Tseng groaned. "My nose is bleeding."

"Poor old man," said Rufus, straightening up, "Let me see – "

Tseng surged off the floor, caught him round the waist and threw him onto the pink kitten sofa with so much force that the springs squealed and collapsed. Rufus sank into its bowels, arms and legs flailing, laughing helplessly. Tseng grabbed hold of him by the front of his waistcoat, lifted him up, and set him on his feet. Throwing out a hand to steady himself, Rufus accidently knocked Tseng under his ribs. It wasn't a hard blow, but Tseng winced.

"What?" Rufus exclaimed, as if he'd caught Tseng out in a lie. "Let me see – " and he slipped his hand under Tseng's waistband to untuck the shirt, lifting it to reveal the fragile beginnings of a bruise. "Did I do that?" He sounded more surprised than apologetic. "Did I really hurt you?"

Before Tseng could stop him, he slid to his knees and put his mouth on the purpling skin.

Tseng grabbed him by the elbows and pulled him up again. "Don't – "

Rufus blinked (hot blue eyes so utterly different, yet so alike), and tossed his head to throw the fringe out of his face, demanding breathlessly, "What's wrong now?"

_Don't kneel to me_, Tseng wanted to say. He couldn't; it would have sounded laughably melodramatic. But it was what he meant, all the same.

.

The villa in the foothills of the Junon highlands stood alone at the end of a mile-long drive lined with cypresses. In the moonlight the trees looked like twin columns of soldiers marching up the hill. Behind the villa two security guards lay tied back to back in the garden shed, heavily stunned with a mastered materia that would not wear off for hours. The bodies of four poisoned guard hounds had been dragged behind the shed. Tseng and Aviva moved like shadows across the pool area to the picture windows. She put a hand on the glass and pushed. It slid open.

_Someone's home_, Tseng mouthed.

It was only the maid, busy making up the bed in the master bedroom. The Sleep effect hit her before she knew they were there. They tied her up, gagged her, carried her down to her bedroom in the basement, and locked the door.

"We've got at least an hour yet," said Tseng, checking the time on his PHS. "Let's have some coffee."

They used the maid's little kitchen. Aviva perched on one of the bar stools, her toes barely reaching the floor. She sipped the coffee he had made, and asked, "How are you going to do it, sir?"

"Knee-caps."

"And me?"

They'd been over this several times already, but he didn't mind explaining it to her again. This was the first time he'd taken her alone with him on a mission, and he could see she was a little nervous. He'd chosen her because of her smallness and stealthiness, the silence of her knives, her ability to dodge bullets by backflipping off walls, and because Charlie had dropped a word in his ear suggesting that she felt undervalued.

"I'll handle the target. If we're lucky, he'll be alone. If he isn't, you keep his company occupied while I complete the mission. We want to minimize collateral damage, so try not to hurt them unless it's absolutely unavoidable."

"Understood."

"Then let's get into position."

The mission played out exactly as Tseng had planned. He and Aviva watched through the dark sitting room window as the target's car came crunching up the drive. The ignition was switched off; doors were opened; men spoke to each other. A child's voice asked a question. The target told the child to stay in the car; the absence of his hounds and his security guards had alerted him to the probability of trouble. He sent his two heavies into the house to see what was happening. Aviva knocked out one, Tseng the other; they jumped over the men's bodies and ran outside, Aviva making straight for the car while Tseng felled the target with a bullet aimed precisely in the side of his left knee.

Aviva wrenched open the passenger door, grabbed the screaming child and threw her onto the ground, slapping a gloved hand over her mouth and warning her to be quiet. The target had drawn his own gun, but the pain from his wound had sent his muscles into spasms; he couldn't control his hand to pull the trigger. Tseng lifted the gun from the target's fingers, shoved it into his waistband, and put a second bullet through the target's other knee. Stooping, he pressed a forearm firmly down on the target's windpipe to hold him still while he searched through his pockets for the key to the ignition.

Aviva lifted the child to her feet. She was maybe ten or eleven years old, and almost as tall as Aviva, long-limbed, flat-chested, fawnlike. The moonlight showed her big eyes caked with make-up, her lips painted some dark shiny colour. She wore platform shoes and a miniskirt, and she smelled very strongly of musk.

A rush of anger began burning under Aviva's skin.

To the child she said, "We're not going to hurt you. Get back in the car. You'll be OK now."

She walked to where Tseng was kneeling over the target, and looked down at the unconscious man's face.

"Mission accomplished," said Tseng, getting to his feet. "Good work, partner."

"It's been a pleasure," Aviva replied.

Then she hawked up a gob of saliva and spat it – spat vehemently, as if she were throwing a knife – between the target's eyes.

Tseng stared at her in astonishment.

"Turns out I used to know him, sir," she said.

Gunfire exploded in their ears. Aviva felt something hot fly stinging past her cheek. Tseng's shirt blossomed red, and he fell. Aviva whirled around. Two strangers wearing balaclavas, jeans and t-shirts stood on the front porch; one of them was still pointing his gun at the place where, only a second before, Tseng had been standing. Reacting at a speed too fast for conscious thought, Aviva cast Stun on them; she hit the one who had shot Tseng and he dropped like a lead weight, breaking his skull open on the edge of the slate doorstep, but she missed the other, who now fired again at her. Throwing herself to one side, she cartwheeled, landed on her feet, and flew through the air at her assailant, her heel making contact with his groin a split second before she punched him in the neck. His larynx imploded under her fist. He rolled to the ground, clawing at his throat. From the corner of her eye Aviva registered that he had a red and blue tattoo on his upper arm, and that one of the symbols in the tattoo was the company logo – but that made no sense and she had no time to think about it now. She turned and ran back to Tseng.

"Sir! Sir!" she cried, falling on her knees beside him. "Can you hear me? Are you all right?"

"Not – really – "

The bullet had torn through his kidney. He was bleeding out fast. There was no time to look for the exit wound; if the bullet was still in his body, the doctors could dig it out later. He was the one carrying the cure materia. Her fingers fumbled as she pulled it from its slot in his pistol and cast the magic.

His skin flushed green – not the sick green of poison, but the green of sunlight shining through leaves. The fountain of his blood stopped pulsing, and the jagged edges of his skin reached out to each other, entwined, melded, became whole again. No matter how many times Aviva saw this happen, it still seemed like a miracle to her.

"Keys," he said faintly, putting them into her hand.

She wedged her shoulder under his armpit, hauled him to his feet, held him up while they staggered to the car. The child was crouched on the back floor, her arms crossed over her head. "Get in front," Aviva told her. She helped Tseng lie down on the back seat, rolling her jacket into a cushion for his head.

He grabbed her arm. "Veev – who -?"

_The tattoo – _

Her heart seemed to drop into her stomach.

"Go - see," he said.

She held her knives at the ready, but there was no need. Both men were dead. Aviva crouched down to take a closer look at the tattoo: a garuda bird with outstretched wings, holding the Shinra diamond in its talons. Underneath, a furling scroll read, '_PSM BCo 5Bn . Offendo Primoris'._

She pulled off their balaclavas. Death had slackened their faces. It was hard to tell exactly how old they were, but she guessed maybe their early thirties. She didn't recognize either of them. Forcing herself to remain calm (_don't feel, think)_ she pulled out her PHS and took a photo of each.

Job done, she ran back to the car. Tseng had fallen unconscious, but his pulse was adequate and his colour was not too bad. In the front passenger seat the child was sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest, teeth chattering. Aviva got into the driver's seat and turned on the ignition. "Seatbelt," she said to the child, adjusting her own. The child did not move so, after a few moments, Aviva leaned over and buckled the belt for her. Then she put her foot to the floor and sped off down the drive, spraying gravel in her wake.

.

" '_Offendo primoris'," _mused the Legend a few hours later. "That's apropos."

He was sitting with Aviva on the balcony of his office high up in Junon, trying to get her to eat some breakfast. A flock of seagulls circled overhead, calling to one another with their harsh, cat-like cries, while out on the very lip of the cannon two tiny brown pelicans perched, wings spread out to dry in the rising sun. The tide was in. Early morning sunlight sparkled off the waves far below them; little sailing boats bobbed in the harbour, and further out to sea, where the water turned a darker shade of blue, a large cargo ship was moving towards the western horizon, on course for Costa del Sol.

She asked him, "What does it mean?"

"'Strike first'. It's the motto of the army's Fifth Battalion."

"Do they all have those tattoos?"

"It's not compulsory. No, I think it was just a careless oversight. Whoever sent them didn't realize he had an identifying mark. Or else they didn't think it would matter. You're both supposed to be dead."

The doctors had told Charlie that they would have to keep Tseng under observation for at least forty-eight hours. He'd lost a lot of blood. Aviva wasn't looking too good either: her face bore a livid scorch mark where the bullet had grazed her cheek, there was a torn ligament in her shoulder that she hadn't become aware of until she'd reached the safety of the Junon branch office, and a fat bruise was swelling the knuckles of her right fist, the fist she had used to punch the throat of the tattooed Shinra grunt, her would-be assassin.

"I can't _believe_ the Old Man would set us up like this," she said, staring bleakly into her empty tea-cup.

"I don't believe it either," Charlie replied. "That's why I've asked Rude to see what he can find out. No one's better at reading people than he is."

.

The first thing Rude saw, as he stood below the cockpit desk delivering his verbal report on their Director's latest brush with death, was that President Shinra was not guilty. Surprise and alarm filled those shrewd blue eyes, and for a moment the President looked like what they always called him – a truly old man, lost and bewildered – but almost immediately he became coldly angry, which meant, Rude deduced, that though he had neither ordered nor known about the attempt on Tseng's life, he could guess who was behind it.

Turning to Scarlet, he spoke in tones as harsh as Rude had ever heard him use, "What do you know about this?"

"The incident is still under investigation," said Scarlet, sounding bored. "PSM have identified the assailants as two recent deserters. We think the target must have hired them as bodyguards."

"Is this true?" the President asked Rude.

_Why not?_ thought Rude. The Old Man wasn't asking if it was really true; he was asking if it was a truth they could work with, a truth that everyone was prepared to find acceptable. Rude thought it likely that Tseng would be willing to agree; however, he could not make that commitment on his Boss' behalf, and therefore said only, "My Director can confirm it, sir."

The Old Man clucked his tongue, an irritable sound. "Tseng was careless. That's not like him. He needs to pull his socks up. Maybe this will be a lesson to him not to get too cocky. And as for these deserters – why weren't they dealt with earlier? Why was it allowed to go this far? Heidegger's getting slack if he can't keep his men in line any better than this. I can't have this sort of thing going on, Scarlet. Employees taking pot shots at each other behind my back… I won't tolerate it, is that understood?"

Scarlet looked as if she had sucked on a lemon. Rude said nothing.

"It had better not happen again," said the President, "Or I'm having somebody's balls. That's all, Turk. Dismissed."

Rude rode the elevator back to the 48th floor. The Turks' lounge area was empty. He stretched out on one of the big blue couches and lay for a while gazing up at the ceiling, mulling things over.

Rude wasn't a facile thinker like Reno. The need to choose his words carefully, to make each one count, had taught him to think things through before he spoke: to look at how each detail fitted into the big picture, and then to sum up the whole as succinctly as possible. The conclusion he now arrived at, after taking everything into consideration, was that his employer was currently trapped between a rock and a several hard places.

The Turks were the only people who knew the truth about Rufus' involvement with AVALANCHE, and the Old Man was the only person who knew that they knew. Under ordinary circumstances, anybody possessing that kind of incriminating information would have been eliminated long ago. But the Turks _were_ the eliminators. The Old Man had always trusted them with his secrets; with his very life. With the well-being of his one remaining child, who must remain in their custody until all threat of danger from AVALANCHE, or from exposure, had passed.

According to Tseng, Scarlet had seen through the business trip story months, if not years ago. She knew that the Old Man was keeping his son out of the public eye on purpose. Inevitably she must have guessed that there was some kind of scandal involved, some secret so dirty that it had to be buried out of sight if it was not to ruin the boy, and possibly the company as well. Furthermore, she was well aware that if such a secret existed, the Turks would be party to it. That was their job, and the Old Man had never done or said anything to imply that he had lost faith in their ability to protect corporate confidentiality.

But what if somebody started whispering in his ear, playing on his paranoia, planting fears of potential blackmail? How hard would it actually be to persuade him to turn against his Turks – Veld's Turks? Would he welcome an excuse to eliminate the eliminators, because they knew too much?

Rude doubted the situation was quite so desperate. Not yet. For one thing, as long as the Turks held Rufus, the Old Man wouldn't risk moving openly against them. More importantly, the Department of Administrative Research still had its uses. Abolishing the Turks would disrupt the balance of power, throwing it all into the hands of the very woman who had a vested interest in removing the Old Man's son permanently from the picture. Scarlet had the army on her side, but Rufus had the Turks; in any struggle for power, the Turks would always side with the rightful heir. The Old Man was well aware of this. And Scarlet knew it, too.

But if Scarlet could find evidence that the Turks were aiding their outlawed Commander, she might be able to force the Old Man's hand. Confronted by indisputable proof that the Turks were defying their orders and that their loyalty was now divided, the President would have no choice but to condemn them. Which would leave Rufus isolated, vulnerable, and possibly even condemned by association. Or – Scarlet's likely preference – dead at the hands of embittered, vengeful Turks. Either outcome would be a good one from her point of view.

In his mind Rude pictured the situation as a sort of vicious triangle, with Scarlet standing in one corner, the President in another, the Turks in a third, facing off with their cocked guns leveled at each other's hearts. Scarlet's opening shot last night had missed its mark, and now everyone was doubly reluctant to be the next to pull the trigger. But these kinds of deadlocks never lasted for long. Sooner or later somebody's nerve was bound to crack, and then things were going get very messy, very fast…

.

Late in the afternoon Charlie walked with Aviva out on to the blacktop of Junon's airport, where a light aircraft was waiting to take her back to Midgar. She was still a little beary-eyed from having slept for almost ten hours on the couch in his office. He had just come back from seeing Tseng.

"Veev, are you serious about wanting to pay this kid's school fees?" he asked her.

She nodded. "Find her some place where they'll look after her. I don't want her to know it's me. I don't want her to think she owes me anything. I just want her to have a chance."

"But you know nothing about her."

"I know enough."

Charlie put a hand on her shoulder and turned her round to face him. "Tseng told me you said you knew the target. Is that true?"

She shrugged. "I could have done. These guys – they're all the same."

He continued to stand there, looking down on her from his greater height, thoughtful, unsmiling. She didn't meet his eyes. There were some things, she felt, which did not need to be talked about.

He said, "Tseng told me you fought like a pro."

Aviva felt her cheeks begin to turn red. The Legend chuckled.

"I think old Charlie's been a bit of a fool," he said. "You don't need looking after, do you? Tch, kids, they grow up so fast these days. You did well last night, Veev. No one could have done better. I'm proud of you." He stooped and kissed her cheek. "You'd better get going, kiddo. See you soon, eh? Take care."

* * *

_Author's notes. There's quite a bit to say this time. Firstly, the idea of Reno playing with his EMR's static was inspired by a post-Meteorfall fic called "Cities of Poison." Written before most of the Compilation, it's stood the test of time and I urge you to read it. Secondly, the slum mafia family known as the Fujeos is borrowed with permission from Clement Rage's epic story of NPCs and Shinra grunts called "A Tale of Midgar". The stock market stuff is entirely my own invention, but I feel I should mention "Nasdack", the series that Karanguni and Ellnyx wrote featuring Rufus, Tseng and Balthier making trouble on Wall Street and in the City. Sadly, it seems to have petered out. Finally, if you're still with me, the use of Latin. Since Sephiroth's song is in Latin, I felt it wasn't too outrageous a stretch to imagine that Latin could stand in as a dead classical language in their world, one that was spoken by some civilization that rose and fell long before Shinra and, perhaps, built Aerith's church. _

_Once again, thank you for reading, and thanks to everyone who has made this story a favourite or put it on alert. You make me feel rewarded, and I hope I can continue to give satisfaction. _


	43. Dying is Easy

_Dear readers and reviewers: I'm really sorry for the long delay. Life just kept on happening, and on top of everything else I simply could not get this chapter to obey me and fall in line. I think I've finally whipped it into shape, but you be the judge. Thanks for reading! _

.

**CHAPTER 43: DYING IS EASY. LIFE, ON THE OTHER HAND...  
**_**In which Tseng wakes up to reality, and Rufus becomes more demanding**_

_**

* * *

**_

Tseng shifted restlessly on his hospital bed. Why couldn't he find a position that stayed comfortable for more than two minutes, dammit?

_Because you have been a fool, _the voice of reason informed him.

He wasn't in much pain; or, if he was, it wasn't registering. No – what was fraying his nerves was this place, this hospital room stinking of disinfectant and dying flowers; they called it a private suite, but it felt like a prison cell. No one around him was listening to a word he said. The phlegmatic Senior Internist had flatly refused to discharge him until his blood count was deemed satisfactory, and the damned officious nurses wouldn't let him have the laptop Charlie had sent round; they said he needed to rest. Involuntary homicide was more likely. Any moment now he'd snap: rip this intravenous drip from his arm, kick the locker open, grab his gun, shoot his way out if they blocked the door, commandeer a helicopter and get himself back to Midgar, back to the bunker, back to Rufus –

_And you still are_, it added.

The knotted ties of his hospital gown were digging into his spine. Tseng wished he could rid himself of the humiliating garment, but he knew that if he took it off the nurses would only wrestle him back into it, so he twisted over onto his uninjured side and tried to think about something else.

So, the assassins had been Heidegger's men. No surprises there. Tseng acknowledged he had only himself to blame; he ought to have foreseen she would seize the opportunity. Scarlet had always been a woman who preferred the most direct solution.

_And do you want to know something else?_ inquired the voice of reason, pleased to be having his full attention for once. _If the Old Man ever finds out what you're doing with his son, Scarlet and Heidegger won't be the only ones after your blood._

No –

Tseng shifted onto his back, the itchy new skin pulling tight across his wound.

_No? Why – do you mean because you're useful to him? Or because your intentions are good? Because you've been encouraging Rufus to see his father in a better light, daydreaming about a reconciliation between them, you think the Old Man's going to view you as a positive influence? _

Chief Turk he might be, and as such entitled to many things: his paycheque; a private hospital room; a seat in the executive railcar; expenses, free lunches, and occasionally thanks for a job well done. What he was not entitled to was his boss's son.

_ If he finds out, the best you can hope for is the humiliation of being demoted and exiled to some fourth-rate branch office. But that's unlikely. You're too prominent. People would ask why, and he wouldn't want the scandal to become public knowledge._

Excuses would be found for Rufus. He was, after all, not much more than a boy. But for Tseng the employee, Wutaian, protégée of a traitor, there would be no mercy.

_Yes, he'll probably just kill you, and hand the Turks over to Heidegger._

A nurse in a starched white uniform entered Tseng's room. Her rubber-soled flats squeaked on the linoleum. She pricked his arm with a needle, informing him, as she depressed the plunger, that she was giving him a sedative. At once he began fighting to stay awake, but the battle was one he couldn't win; his last thought, before he lost consciousness, was to wonder if the nurse had also been sent by Scarlett.

In his sleep he dreamed again of drowning, of being able to breathe under water. Then he dreamt of Sephiroth, and woke briefly, drenched in sweat, unable to remember any of the details of what he had just dreamed. The hour was late; the lights in the corridor were dimmed, the hospital quiet. Tseng drifted back to sleep, and this time he dreamed a confused dream in which he was running through the corridors inside the plate, running with exquisite slowness, the way he always did in dreams, searching for Rufus, whom someone had taken, and gradually coming to the realisation that he would never be able to find him, because he was hopelessly, hopelessly lost –

Tseng woke himself from that dream by sheer willpower. Outside his windows, it was day. _No more drugs_, he decided.

He had been careless, but he would do better from now on.

Soon after breakfast the hospital's Consultant-Director came in person to check the Chief Turk over, and, finding that their VIP patient's wounds were healed to his satisfaction, signed Tseng's discharge papers. Tseng put on the new suit and tie Charlie had delivered for him and the plain gold cufflinks from which the blood had been carefully cleaned, took the air taxi up to the airport, and got into the helicopter that was waiting to take him home.

The moment he set foot on the rooftop helipad he was summoned to a private audience with the President. Scarlett was conspicuous by her absence. The Old Man filled Tseng in on the latest news from Junon. A couple of gunmen, deserters from the Shinra army, had broken into the luxury villa of one of the company's business associates, intending to rob it, and had shot the householder through both knees when he came home unexpectedly. The story was in all the papers, the Old Man said. Fortunately the businessman's bodyguards had arrived on the scene in time to kill the two deserters and save their master's life, though his injuries were such that he would be spending what was left of that life in a wheelchair. "Shame," said the Old Man. He almost sounded as if he meant it.

Tseng wondered whether the target's bodyguards had been paid to tell that story, or if they had latched on to it gratefully as a means of redeeming themselves.

The Old Man launched into a lecture. "That was pretty sloppy work on your part, Tseng, letting yourself get shot like that. You need to get your act together. I've entrusted you with some very valuable things; I'd hate to think that they're not safe with you."

Although Tseng had vowed to himself over and over again that he would keep a cool head and give nothing away, anger began to boil in his chest when he heard those words. What was wrong with this old man? Why did he have to say such things? Did he think they inspired more loyalty, greater devotion? Tseng burned to answer back:_ I think I know better than you do just how precious he is; I'm the one who's been putting him back together after the mess you made of him._

But it was not his job to set the President straight, so Tseng swallowed his pride and kept his thoughts to himself. When at last the Old Man dismissed him, he went down to the 48th floor and sat for a while at his desk, considering the situation. Undoubtedly their floor was bugged. The last sweep had been too long ago; Tseng had allowed himself to become preoccupied with other matters. Careless. Reno and Skeet would have to comb through the office today – lift up the ceiling tiles, scan the hollows inside the walls, plumb the ventilation shafts - and draw up a map showing the location of any devices they uncovered. Removing the bugs would be pointless; it would serve only to alert their enemies, and possibly invite a more aggressive surveillance. The best thing to do would be to leave the bugs in place, and find somewhere else to talk when they needed to avoid being overhead. The cafeteria would do in a pinch, especially when it was crowded.

Paper shredder. Not good enough. One of the Turks would need to take all discarded documents, every scrap of paper, down to the furnace room once a day and personally ensure that they were completely burned.

Phones. Not secure. Tseng briefly considered asking Rosalind to re-set the encryption algorithms, but that again would only tip their enemies off. He didn't want to get sucked into a technological arms race. For the time being, then, they would continue to use their phones for all ordinary business, employing codes as necessary, and save the communication of sensitive information for when they were face to face in a bug-free zone.

Planning these various stratagems restored to Tseng some sense of being in control. Picking up his phone, he summoned Reno and Skeet, and gave them their orders scribbled on a piece of paper. Next he asked Aviva to come in so that he could thank her. Then he went to find Rude, and took him to the cafeteria for a coffee and a quiet debriefing. He wished he could share Rude's certainty that the President had had no part in the attempt on his life – but then again, that nagging doubt might be no more than his own self-consciousness speaking, the guilty knowledge that he was engaged in things unforgiveable in his employer's eyes, making the Old Man's innocence difficult for him to believe in.

Back in his office, he turned his attention to the pile of documents that had built up in his in-tray. He spun out this paperwork for as long as possible, but by the time he reached the bottom, it was only midnight, and he had nothing left to take his mind off his need for Rufus.

From the moment that morning when he'd awoken in his hospital bed to the realization that he'd been shouting Rufus' name in his sleep, the need had been building in him like an itch that he could not scratch; like a laugh he did not dare let loose for fear of drawing attention to himself. He could not go to the bunker tonight. It was too soon after his release from hospital, too blatantly unnecessary. How could he justify a visit to Rufus at this late hour? He couldn't think of a single reason that didn't sound bogus. And Rufus was probably asleep by now, anyway.

Still…

If Tys or Hunter had been on guard duty, he might have risked it. Either one would be so grateful for the gift of a night off that they wouldn't stop to ask themselves what their Boss was getting out of it. Or if it had been Rosalind – who was the most exemplary of Turks, unquestioningly obedient, and in matters of the heart almost as deaf and blind as he was often accused of being – he might have been willing to chance his luck. However, Reno was the one guarding the Vice-President tonight, and Reno was just too _damned_ sharp-eyed.

Tseng caught himself on the verge of feeling absurdly cheated, as if he were somehow entitled to have what he wanted _right now_ because he'd been such a good, sensible boy for the last three days. Anger was beginning to smoulder inside him, irrational anger, anger at Reno; as if Reno were to blame for the situation; as if Reno were being deliberately obstructive -

Enough. He was not some lovesick teenage girl, unable to command his emotions. He was the Director of Shinra's feared Department of Administrative Research, and these unruly feelings would be brought to heel at once. They were ridiculous - self-indulgent - a symptom of weakness – and dangerous….

_If it were only my own neck I was risking,_ Tseng realised,_ I wouldn't care._

The prospect of death did not frighten him. He'd lived with it looking over his shoulder for as long as he could remember. If it ever did come down to a simple choice between dying for love, or going back to the kind of half-alive life that had been his existence for far too long, he would rather be wholly dead.

But what would happen to his team if he died? To the Commander? To Zack? Who would watch over Aerith? And who would care for Rufus? It was all very well to make empty speeches about dying for someone, as if that were the way to protect them. Death was a simple transaction, a one-time-only sacrifice. It would be the work of a moment to take a bullet for Rufus. But when Tseng was gone, who would take the next one?

Dying for someone wasn't difficult. _Living_ for someone, day after day, that was the challenge. That was an infinite complicated business. It was so hard to know when you were getting it right.

The ringing of his phone interrupted these reflections. Reno's number. Why would Reno be calling him at this hour? Was something wrong? Tseng quickly flipped the PHS open. "Yes?" he demanded.

"Where _are_ you?" whispered Rufus.

Caught off guard, Tseng couldn't speak; his tongue cleaved to the roof of his suddenly dry mouth, and the thrum of his heart-beat filled his ears.

"Tseng?" said Rufus a little louder. "It's me. Are you there?"

"Yes – I – Why are you calling me on Reno's phone?"

"He's in the bathroom. He left it on the table. I needed to hear your voice. Why aren't you here?"

"I'm working."

"But it's midnight. You were only discharged from hospital this -"

"Yes. I can't talk. Don't use the phone."

"What?"

Despite the tightening of his ribcage, Tseng gathered enough breath to say, "People might be listening – sir."

"What? Tseng, are you all right? What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I'll see you – when you get back, sir. Delete this call record. Good night."

"No, wait – "

Tseng shut the phone and threw it across the room, a futile, childish gesture that he instantly regretted. It hit the floor with a crack and spun into a corner. He wondered if it was broken. Then he wondered if he was the one cracking up. It rang again. Tseng walked over, picked it up, looked at the caller ID, and turned the phone off, but for some reason he couldn't explain to himself he was reluctant to put it back in his pocket. It felt like a loaded gun.

.

He did sleep, eventually, though he did not realize he had fallen asleep until he woke up in his chair with a crick in his neck and an ache in the wound in his flank. By five o'clock that afternoon he had managed to free himself from all the other demands on his time, and called Roz in the bunker to let her know he was coming to relieve her.

He had expected an angry and haughty Rufus, or perhaps a sullen and petulant Rufus. What he saw, as he came through the door, was an impeccably groomed Rufus in a pressed white suit, sitting on the sofa calmly reading a book. One leg was crossed over the other, and the cat was asleep in his lap.

Tseng wondered how long he had been sitting like that, waiting.

Rosalind sat curled up on the opposite sofa, doing the crossword in the newspaper. Both of them raised their heads simultaneously as Tseng came in. He forced his eyes away from Rufus and smiled at Roz.

"Oh, sir," she exclaimed, getting to her feet. "It's so good to see you."

Rufus drawled in frosted tones, "Director. You've recovered. Good man."

_Ah_, thought Tseng, _so that's how it's going to be, is it?_

Rosalind was in no hurry to leave. She wanted to talk. Tseng let her take him to the kitchen and listened to her chatter while she made coffee. Rufus remained on the sofa, turning a page of his book from time to time. Each time he did so, the faint rustle of the paper set off a spark inside Tseng that crackled along his nerves.

"… after graduating," Roz was saying. "Now she's talking about coming to Midgar and finding a job. I suppose I should be glad she has _some_ kind of plan… "

Tseng didn't know how long he could stand this. He wished she would just go.

Finally he said, "Roz, there are things I need to discuss with the Vice-President – "

She nodded and put down her cup. "Oh, of course. And I have plenty to do waiting for me back at the office. It's just that it's so good to see you, sir -" she briefly touched a hand to his sleeve - "Alive."

He walked to the door with her. Rufus looked up from his book and said, "Good-night, Rosalind."

"Good night, Mr Rufus." Then she stood on tip-toe to whisper in Tseng's ear. "He's quite fond of you really, you know. I think he was worried about you. He couldn't settle to anything all day, until you called."

Tseng shut the door behind her. A few seconds later he heard the outer door slide open, then closed. In the same moment the air rippled behind him; warm breath blew across the nape of his neck. He shivered and began to turn, but the weight of Rufus' body forced him backward, pinning him at an awkward angle against the door. Next moment, Rufus' hands were on him, burrowing inside his clothes to find his skin. How hot those hands were, chafing and stirring his cold flesh. The sensation was strangely akin to pain, the flowing of blood back into frozen extremities. He opened his mouth to say so, but found it sealed, filled, as in his dream of breathing underwater.

Struggling; drowning; dying; release….

Floating to the sunlit surface, breath calming down, pulse slowing down; Rufus's clever hands petting his stomach, Rufus saying, "They've ruined it. It was so beautiful," while one fingertip lightly circled the four-day-old bullet wound that had torn a hole through his long ribbon of a scar. "You have to stop doing this," Rufus admonished him. "You have to stop getting yourself killed whenever I'm not there."

"I take it you have no objections to me dying if you _are_ there?"

The lame old joke failed to raise a smile. "You wouldn't die," said Rufus earnestly. "I wouldn't let you."

Tseng was silenced. He could think of nothing to say that wouldn't sound patronizing, hateful.

Tightening his arms round Tseng's hips, Rufus pressed his face deep into the firm elasticity of the Turk's stomach, deep to the point of discomfort; Tseng's wound stabbed complainingly, and he felt the pulse of an artery beat against Rufus's jaw. Sliding a hand between that rough cheek, too long unshaven, and his own belly, Tseng tried gently to ease Rufus away, hoping the gesture would not be seen as a rebuff. Rufus did relax the pressure a little, but his mouth moved against Tseng's skin as he said:

"Every time you leave this place I'm afraid I'll never see you again."

Tseng stroked his hair. "No such luck. Bad pennies like me, we always turn up."

"Stop joking. I'm serious. I'm not just afraid that you'll get killed. I'm afraid you're going to leave me."

"How could I do that?"

Rufus shifted position slightly, angling his head round to search Tseng's face with eyes that seemed more grey than blue, clouded and ominous like a gathering storm. Tseng wondered what he had said wrong.

"Oh, I think you could do it very easily," Rufus informed him, "If you thought it was for the best. You wouldn't give me any advance warning, because you know I'd try to put up a fight, and you wouldn't be willing to discuss it, because you'd have already made up your mind. No, you'll just walk out that door one day and never come back. And I'll never know why."

His chin was digging into Tseng's navel. Tseng tugged at his hair and asked, "Do you really think I could do that? Do I seem like such a coward to you?"

"I don't think you're a coward, but you _are_ very stubborn. And very thorough. And I know you don't love me the way I love you."

Tseng thought this was probably true, though not at all in the way Rufus meant. He smiled and said, "You never told me you were a mind-reader."

"I wish I were," Rufus sighed. "Most of the time I have no idea what's going on inside your head." Relinquishing his hold on Tseng's hips, he rolled back to lean up on one elbow, and went on, "But I don't need to be able to read your mind to know that I love you more than you love me. That's inevitable, I think. They say that in every relationship there's always one person who loves, and one person who allows himself to be loved."

"Who says that?"

"I can't remember; I read it somewhere."

"You _read_ it?" Tseng swallowed a laugh.

Rufus scowled. "Just because it comes out of a book doesn't mean it isn't true. You've loved other people before me, but I've never loved anyone else, only you, all my life, for as long as I can remember."

"It just seems like that now. You're forgetting all the times you tried to kill me."

"No," said Rufus, "Never you."

_Kill them all, but not Tseng. _There was no answer to that.

"You see?" Rufus observed. "I'm right, aren't I? It was the same with Aerith Gast. For all I know, it still is. You love her, and she lets herself be loved."

The urge to laugh died in Tseng. He sat up. "It's not the same in any way," he told Rufus. "Not in _any_ way."

Rufus took hold of his upper arm. "Is that where you were last night? With her?"

"I told you. I was working."

"Do you still see her?"

"She has nothing to do with you and me."

Rufus's eyes chased his. "Have you patched things up with her yet?"

"Move. I need to get up – "

"Look at me. Why don't you want to talk about her?"

"Rufus," Tseng warned him, "Let go of me."

Rufus tightened his grip. "Of course you see her. I don't know why I bothered to ask. You have to see her, because it's your work, isn't it, just like I'm your _work_, aren't I? You said it yourself. Is that what you're doing right now? Working? No sacrifice is too great – got to do whatever it takes to keep the V.P. happy – "

Tseng said, "Rufus, listen to yourself - "

"Are you fucking me on his orders?"

For a moment Tseng could neither speak nor move. It wasn't shock – more a sudden, overwhelming sensation of futility, of hopelessness. How could Rufus think such a thing, even in anger?

And yet, why shouldn't he think it? It wasn't impossible. Tseng had done such things in the past, and had ordered others to do them.

Brushing Rufus' hand from his arm, he rose from the narrow bunk bed, stooped to pick up his trousers from the floor, and pulled them on. Then he went into the sitting room, walking blindly. Finding himself standing beside the green sofa, he sat, and put his head in his hands.

A little while he later he heard Rufus say, "Tseng?"

He raised his head. Rufus was standing in the doorway with his arms folded, dressed in black sweatpants and a white t-shirt hastily pulled over his head. His uncombed hair straggled across his eyes. "I can't live like this," he said.

_Yes, I think it's impossible, too._

"It's easy for you," Rufus went on, "You can leave this place any time you like. Did you ever once think what it was like for me, knowing you were in hospital and unable to come to you? I couldn't even call you. Do you have any idea how that made me feel? I _hate_ being trapped inside this box. Watched twenty-four hours a day. Waiting for you to decide it's safe to come see me. Keeping one eye on the clock the whole time. Hush-hush, sneaking around… god, it's such a cliché. I _despise_ clichés. And now I am one. Sometimes you make me feel like a – like a _kept woman_. And please don't remind me that I'm caught in a coil entirely of my own making, because believe me, I'm not about to forget it."

He took a deep breath, then stepped forward and stretched out a hand. "Tseng, please - I apologise for what I said back there. It was unpardonable. But you don't know what it's like being imprisoned down here day after day after day with no end in sight. All kinds of terrible thoughts come into my head. I'm sorry. And I'm sorry I called you last night. After I stopped being furious with you, I realized your phones are probably tapped."

"I think it's more than likely, yes. PHS transcripts are also routinely recorded. We prefer to err on the side of caution."

"You know, it would be so much easier if you'd just shoot him."

Like a sucker punch to the gut these words took Tseng's breath away.

_ You gullible fool! _shrieked the little voice._ He's been planning this all along, to reel you in, to talk you round… _

Shut up, Tseng told it, before saying as steadily as he could, "You don't mean that."

"But it's true," Rufus insisted. "It's the answer to all our problems. He's verging on senility as it is, Tseng. He won't be able to keep Scarlett in check for much longer."

Tseng was forced to acknowledge the grain of truth in this statement, though he had no intention of saying so out loud. "We'll cross that bridge when we have to," he replied.

"But just think how old he is. You'd be sparing him the slow nasty degeneration into the grave – "

"Don't be absurd."

"But I mean it. You could do it kindly. He'd never have to know what hit him. Wouldn't we all prefer to go that way?"

"Rufus, I have no intention of killing your father for you."

"Not for me!" The blue eyes were alight with fervour, clear and eager. "For us. For _you, _Tseng. You're going to wind up dead if we don't do something."

"I am not a traitor."

"Traitor to _what_? What has he ever done for you, except use you? You owe him nothing. And he wouldn't hesitate to kill _you_, if he found out about us."

"I know that. Nevertheless."

"But _why_?" Rufus exclaimed. "I don't understand. Is it because he's the President? Are you trying to live up to some impossible ideal Veld planted in your mind? Is this your precious loyalty again, making everything complicated when it could all be so simple?"

Tseng's jaw tightened dangerously. "Yes. And no. I will not do it because it would be contrary to the interests of the company to allow you to begin your presidency with such a stain on your reputation. But also – " his voice suddenly dropped, became chillier, more shadowy, like deepening dusk, "Because he _is_ your father, and I believe he does love you in spite of everything you've done. And god knows, I know what that feels like."

Rufus slammed his fist into the doorpost. The blow rippled through the thin plywood wall. "Then get me out of here!" he shouted. "Start doing your job, Turk. Find AVALANCHE. Kill Fuhito. Rescue Veld if you have to, if it means that much to you. Do whatever you have to. Just don't die. Don't you _dare_ die and leave me –"

The words caught in his throat; his voice failed him. Drops of blood glistened on the broken skin of his scraped knuckles, but he seemed unaware of having injured himself. Speechlessly he glared at Tseng, his eyes blazing like torches, their core dark with rage and fear and a terrible, fathomless longing.

Confronted by that burning glare, Tseng's own resentment shrivelled and melted away. He felt it slipping from him, and was glad to let it go, ugly mean-spirited thing that it was. A deepening sense of shame took its place. Rufus trusted him, trusted him absolutely; he had just allowed him to witness a display of pure naked emotion that few would have believed Rufus Shinra capable of, let alone been permitted to see. And how had Tseng repaid that trust? With old doubts and egoistic indignation. There had been no untruths in Rufus's words, and no intention to deceive; only impatience, and frustration, and the self-centredness of youth. Was it fair to be angry with him for being himself? For still having much to learn? For having clumsily bruised Tseng's unreasonable vanity?

_I'm too hard on him_, Tseng reproached himself._ I expect far too much. One can't look for an old head on young shoulders. He, too, is only human. I need to remember that._

Getting to his feet, he crossed the room and took the younger man in his arms. Rufus briefly tried to fight him off, but Tseng persisted, until, with a sound that was half a sigh and half a groan, Rufus gave up struggling and subsided against Tseng's chest, allowing the Turk's arms to fold around him. Tseng began to rub his back, first with one hand, then with both, moving them in circles to exert a firm, soothing pressure. Through the thin fabric of the t-shirt he could feel the ridges of the scars his own ungovernable temper had laid on Rufus' flesh, nearly four years ago now. They felt like a net of knotted twine.

Objectively, Tseng supposed, some people might call those scars ugly, but he did not find them so. Neither, it seemed, did Rufus. He never went out of his way to keep them covered, never said _please don't look at them _or _don't touch_. If anything, he seemed proud of having some marks of his own to set against the stories of adventure and survival engraved on Tseng's skin. Those scars were the living testimony of his resilience, proof that a rite of passage had been successfully endured, and as such, of all the beautiful parts of this beautiful boy's body, they sometimes appeared, to Tseng, the most beautiful of all. He could never regret having made them. They had been necessary.

Which meant, thought Tseng, as Rufus's fingers tangled in his loose hair and Rufus's mouth sought the faded teeth-marks on his neck, that perhaps everything that had happened had been necessary. Looking back over the years and the long chain of events that had brought them to this moment in this stuffy room deep under the plate, Tseng could identify nothing that could have been done differently. Many things _ought_ to have been done differently, yes, but he wondered now if those lost opportunities, which weighed so heavily on his conscience, had ever been anything other than illusions.

Surrendering himself to the demands of the flesh was one way of escaping such thoughts, at least for a while.

* * *

_I have a very specific request to make of anyone who is willing to reply. Is it clear, throughout this chapter, which of the different male characters is being referred to by the various "he's", "him's" and "his's"? Please let me know if my pronouns are ambigious, because I've tinkered around with this chapter for so long that I can't tell any more. Thanks! - and my thanks to you all for your support of this apparently endless saga. _

_More Reno in the next chapter..._


	44. Room to Breathe

**CHAPTER 44: ROOM TO BREATHE  
**_**In which the Turks make plans, Rufus dreams, and Reno gets a bit too close for Tseng's comfort**_

_**

* * *

**_

Waiting for Tseng on his desk the next morning was Cissnei's weekly report, which had reached him via the usual channels, involving a long distance lorry driver, several fishermen, a barista, Charlie, Charlie's PA, and the internal mailbag. Tseng had the code memorized, and could decipher what she'd written in his head as he went along, but he could see at a glance that there was no need; the report was a single paragraph. Once again, Cissnei had no news for him.

Rising from his chair, Tseng fed her report through the paper shredder, and walked across the room to the shelves where the dead mission files were kept, a whole wall filled from floor to ceiling with identical maroon-coloured, five-ring leather binders. Those on the top shelf were due for archiving some time during the coming year. Tseng reached for the one labelled by the reference number _S-DAR/01.10.2002-Nib/S_. Carrying it to his desk, he opened it and, still standing, slowly turned the pages. Everything was here: the personnel biographies and the mugshots; copies of his report, Veld's report, Reno's report, the report of every Turk who'd gone on that mission to hell; the board minutes, the executive memoranda, the PHS transcripts; the press releases and the obituaries, and finally the balance sheet drawn up by one of the high-security accountants in the finance department, tallying the cost. Tseng would find no fresh clues here; he knew all this information by heart already. Closing the file, he returned it to its place on the top shelf and sat back down in his chair, thinking.

Zack's continued ability to evade detection was both unexpected and impressive; the art of concealment was not something one normally associated with SOLDIERs First Class, who were designed to be highly visible, awe-inspiring, flamboyant. All the same, Tseng liked to think that if _his_ department had been the ones in charge of the manhunt, Zack's fate would have been settled by now. He would have first established the general direction of Zack's movements by checking the CCTV pump footage from all the mako stations a tank's worth of fuel away from the woods where Cissnei had given him the bike, and after that it would have been a relatively simple matter of repeating the process until the trail came to an end, then eliminating possible hideouts one by one. Mako poisoning was a notifiable disease, so Zack wouldn't have risked taking Strife to a doctor, but his SOLDIER training would have given him some basic knowledge of how to treat the illness, which meant he needed to be close to supplies of materia, potion, and other medical items. Tseng's best guess was a medium-sized town, big enough for two men to lose themselves in, somewhere on the western half of the continent. Or maybe Zack had managed to get them across to Wutai, possibly on a smuggler's boat. It would have been the smart thing to do.

Then again, maybe Private Strife was dead. Cissnei had said he didn't look like he'd last much longer. Maybe Zack was on his own, now.

_I could find him_, thought Tseng, _if they'd let me. And if this department wasn't chronically short-staffed._

Tseng had eleven Turks at his direct disposal, plus Charlie and the various branch office subordinates. Heidegger had a thousand times more men, and yet for months now he had failed even to establish Zack's whereabouts, let alone capture him. Sooner or later the Old Man would call him to account for this failure; the hairy fat oaf needed no help from the Turks to dig his own grave. Indulging in various murderous fantasies had helped Tseng pass the time while tossing and turning on his hospital bed, but from a purely practical point of view the removal of Heidegger would do them more harm than good. Lined up below the fat one in the ranks were at least half a dozen sharp-witted, battle-hardened commanders eager to take up the Field Marshall's baton and show what they were made of – and one day, one fine day, when Rufus was in charge and the army and the Turks were no longer at each other's throats, Tseng would be more than happy to organize Heidegger's retirement. For now, though, he preferred to deal with the incompetence of the devil he knew.

It was time for a coffee break. Tseng made a call to Reno, who was patrolling Sector 8, and then set off to collect Rosalind from the surveillance room on the floor between floors, where she was engaged in trying to break the army's coded radio transmissions. As he walked, he mentally ran through the whereabouts of the rest of his team, ticking them off one by one: Knox, flown to Rocket Town with Palmer to look at an airship; Mink, gone with Reeve and his posse of reactor architects to Wutai; Rude and Aviva in Gold Saucer, sorting out a race-fixing ring that had been costing Dio's investors a small fortune; Skeeter in Icicle Inn, where a man matching Fuhito's description had recently been spotted trying to buy materia; Tys on guard duty with Rufus. That left Cavour, busy oiling guns in the weapons room, and Hunter, who was writing the closing report on the latest case of pilfering from the company warehouses, to hold the fort on the 48th floor.

Tseng and Rosalind took the elevator down to the lobby, walked to Sector 8, and rendezvoused with Reno at the fountain. From here Tseng led them up the stairs to the esplanade and across the bridge to the Sector One station. The little coffee shop in the station arcade was not too busy, but the Turks preferred to sit outside at one of the pavement tables, where it was easier to spot trouble coming from a long way off. Nobody spoke much until the waitress had brought them their drinks, taken Tseng's money, and gone back inside. Then Reno slid deeper into his seat, long legs stretched out in front of him, one arm looped over the back of his chair, and said, "So, Boss. Top secret meeting. What gives? You changed your mind? We gonna plan how to give that bitch a taste of her own medicine? Please say yes."

Rosalind answered before Tseng could: "You know we can't do that."

"Fuck, why not? She started it."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Reno, how old are you?"

"Old enough to know that when a woman like that sets her heart on something, she'll get it, or die trying. Scarlett wants you out of the way, Tseng. Bad."

Across the way there was a second-hand bookshop; Tseng could see Rosalind's peaky face, and his own, pale and drawn, and Reno's vibrant hair, reflected in the tinted glass of its bay window. He closed his eyes.

Reno was right. Scarlett's arrogance and ambition made it certain that she would try again at some point to kill him, though probably not soon; she'd need to give the Old Man's anger a chance to cool first, and ease her way back into his good graces. But Rosalind was also right; any attempt to strike openly at Scarlett right now would be a major tactical blunder. The President had made his position clear: the use of violence among his executives would not be tolerated. He, and he alone, held that prerogative. If any harm were to come to Scarlett, the Turks would be held responsible, no matter how well they covered it up – and even if they'd had no hand in it. The Old Man wouldn't be in the mood for excuses; he'd set the army on them, and they'd have no choice but to flee, or die.

Opening his eyes, he found them both looking at him curiously. He said, "Rude is convinced she was acting behind the Old Man's back."

"I'm sure of it," said Rosalind firmly. "What would the President gain from having you killed, Tseng? It doesn't make sense. And it isn't his style. If he wanted you taken out, he'd – "

She faltered, and didn't finish her sentence, but the other two knew what she had been about to say. All three of them fell silent, thinking of how it would be; thinking of Veld.

"We're forgetting something," said Reno at last.

"What's that?" asked Rosalind.

"Our leverage."

Tseng tensed.

"I mean," Reno went on, "No offense, Boss, but that's the real reason he's so pissed with her, isn't it? He's afraid we'll even the score on the V.P. Rufus _is_ the only kid he's got left. I assume he's gonna want him back in one piece, some day."

"It's in _all_ our interests to ensure the Vice President's continued safety," Tseng reminded him sharply. "Let's try to keep things in perspective. This isn't the first time somebody's tried to kill me, and it's unlikely to be the last. I'm not going to let it spook us into making any rash moves. Our objectives remain unchanged: find the support materia, use it to lure Fuhito into the open, terminate him, shut down AVALANCHE, return Rufus to his father, and obtain a pardon for Commander Veld. After that, if it's still necessary, we can sort out Scarlett, but right now we have some practical matters we need to attend to."

A shadow fell over his hands. He looked up. It was the pretty little waitress, asking if everything was all right. Did they want a top-up, or something sweet? Cake, perhaps? She addressed her questions to Tseng, but her eyes kept sliding away towards Reno, who gave her his high-voltage smile, all white teeth and charm, holding her spellbound for a moment. Her pencil fell from her fingers into Tseng's cup; coffee splashed on the white tablecloth. Blushing deeply, she fished it out with her fingers, stammered an apology, and rushed inside to pour a fresh cup.

"Can't you _try_ to keep your mind on your work?" Rosalind demanded as soon as the waitress's back was turned, "Instead of down your trousers, just for once?"

"Hey, what I can say? I didn't _ask_ for this smokin' hot face, you know; I was born with it. Nobody understands what a curse it is."

She gave him a withering look, its effectiveness somewhat diminished by the fact that the corners of her mouth were twitching with reluctant amusement.

Tseng noticed that a man with a briefcase had just taken a seat three tables away, and was opening out a newspaper, the Midgar _Observer._ The waitress came back with the coffee, set it in front of him, and then moved on to take briefcase man's order. Tseng made a gesture for the other two to come closer. Reno sat up, and pulled his chair forwards. The three of them leaned in until their heads – black, blonde, red – were almost touching.

"There's going to be some changes," Tseng told them, his voice pitched low, "Starting with the bunker duty roster. Too much of your time is being wasted down there. I need my operatives in the field. All the same, we can't leave Rufus unguarded. Up till now, I've been providing relief guard duty whenever I've had some time to spare. We need to formalise that arrangement. Since much of my work can be done as easily down in the bunker as at my desk, it makes sense that I take over a larger portion of the guard duty. That will free up more of your man-hours for field work."

The words tumbled from him just a little too quickly, too forcefully – or at least, so it sounded to his ears. He gave Rosalind and Reno a challenging look, daring them to notice - and humbled, amazed, always, always, that they noticed nothing. That their faith in him was so blind.

"I suppose it does make sense," Rosalind agreed. "But – it's rookie work, sir. Are you sure?"

"Hey," Reno nudged her with his pointy elbow. "If the Boss doesn't mind taking his turn with the rest of us, don't argue with him."

_This isn't lying_, Tseng reminded himself. _I've never told them everything, only as much as they need to know to do their jobs. This is no different. These new arrangements are necessary. They can see that as well as I can. _

"But – what if we need to reach you, sir? What if the President wants to talk to you?"

"You two can deputise for me. As long as one of us is always in the office, there shouldn't be a problem. Roz, you'll draw up the new schedule as soon as we get back. Now, phones. We've been getting careless with them. That has to stop. From today there'll be a department-wide ban on their use anywhere inside the plate, except in an emergency."

He glanced at Reno as he said this; he knew he shouldn't, but he could not stop himself. Those greeny-blue eyes flickered knowingly, evading his gaze. Tseng's stomach knotted. "What is it?" he demanded.

Reno grimaced; his shoulders slumped. "Oh, _shit_,' he said with feeling, and all at once Tseng recognized that the look in Reno's shifty eyes was not knowing, not accusing, but _guilty._ "Listen, Boss, Roz - I'm really sorry about this, but the V.P. got his hands on my phone the other night, and I think he might have used it to call somebody."

"What?" cried Rosalind.

Briefcase man lowered his newspaper and stared at them.

"Sssh," said Reno.

She gave him a dirty look, but dropped her voice, stage-whispering her wrath: "Reno! You idiot! What did you do? Leave it lying around?"

"Yes. I was stupid. I know. Sorry."

Tseng cough, coughed again, cleared his throat. "Who - ?"

"Dunno. Little shit cleared the call record, didn't he? I caught him red-handed. Of course, he denies everything. Said he was looking to see if I had any games."

"Was he calling his father?" Rosalind wondered.

"I don't know," Reno replied with a promptness that indicated this fear had been uppermost in his mind also. "But I don't think so. If he'd called the Old Man, we'd have heard from him upstairs by now."

"But who else would he call? Maybe he didn't have time to put the call through." Rosalind hesitated, and a glint of humour came into her eye. She added, "Or maybe he was _answering_ the phone. Fielding a call from one of your angry ex-girlfriends, probably. I bet his ears are still burning."

"See, that's why I keep telling you I need a secretary." Reno turned to Tseng. "Seriously, Boss, you should tackle him. Teach him why it's not right to go taking other people's stuff without permission." A big grin spread across Reno's face; he laughed, and added, "Yeah, you tell the Shinra that. That'll go down really well. I can see it now."

"This is no laughing matter," Tseng cut him short. "You shouldn't have left the phone on the table. It should be on your person at all times."

Reno formed his features into an appropriately contrite expression. "Understood. Will do."

"Fortunately, it appears as if no damage was done, so we'll draw a line under the incident. Just don't let it happen again."

"You haven't touched your coffee, sir," said Rosalind. "It's gone cold. Shall I get the waitress?"

"No, we're almost done here. We just need to talk about moving the files."

"Our files? To the bunker, you mean?"

"Yes. There's a lot of information in those files that we don't want falling into Scarlett's hands. She's out of favour right now and that's bought us some time, but it isn't going to last; we have to expect that sooner or later the President is going to give her, or Heidegger, permission to search our floor."

"As soon as he realizes that his son is missing, he'll give her carte blanche," said Rosalind, voicing what they all thought.

"That might not be for months," Reno pointed out. "When was the last time the Old Man came to see the V.P.? Must have been a year ago, and then he stayed for what? Fifteen minutes?"

"Well, you never know," she observed drily, "Rufus might find someone's phone lying around, and decide to give his dad a call."

"Hey, play fair, Roz. The Boss just said that case was closed - "

"If we could return to the matter in hand," said Tseng, "The only thing that's certain is that we don't know how much time we have, and we can't afford to be caught short. We need to start moving the more sensitive files right away. Reno, I'm putting you in charge of this. Anything relating to the Commander, or that connects Rufus with AVALANCHE, goes first, together with all the surveillance reports on Aerith."

"We're gonna end up with a lot of bare shelves. It'll look kinda odd if we don't fill 'em with something."

"Dummy files?" Rosalind suggested.

"Yes," said Tseng. "We can fabricate some, and dig up some innocuous documents from the archives. It's tedious work, but we'll need them as soon as possible."

"I'll get the Honey right on it," promised Reno with a wicked grin.

"Perhaps you should re-think that deputy idea, sir. He's obviously planning to abuse his power."

Reno waggled his tongue at her.

Rosalind, retaliating, stuck hers out too.

Tseng looked from one to the other. "You're both in a very good mood today," he observed. "Why?"

Rosalind beamed at him. "Because you're alive, sir."

"Because we're none of us dead yet," Reno added, his grin wider than ever. "And the Chief's not dead yet either, as far as we know. And yeah, we still got you, Boss. We're in with a fighting chance. The way I see it, things could be a hell of a lot worse."

* * *

Rufus made no objections when Tseng told him about the new duty roster arrangements. "I actually prefer knowing exactly when I'll see you," he said. "I won't have to spend every waking minute hoping you'll walk through that door."

"I'm glad you're happy with it."

"I'm - philosophical," Rufus yawned. "What can't be cured must be endured, as my old Nanny Nethersole used to say."

It was nearly two o'clock in the morning. Tseng, naked, his hair loose about his shoulders, was sitting crossed-legged at one end of the purple sofa; Rufus, equally naked and very relaxed, took up the rest of the sofa, one arm folded behind his head, his heels resting on Tseng's solid thigh. In his right hand Tseng held a copy of the Shinra Times, folded back to the financial section, which he was reading in a desultory fashion between snatches of conversation. His other hand idly caressed Rufus' foot.

Having spent much of his childhood and adolescence guarded from physical contact and starved of affection, Rufus now could not get enough of it; so much so, that Tseng was coming to believe Rufus craved that connection of skin with skin, the warmth of another human being's touch, almost more than he wanted the sex. Often he would follow Tseng from room to room just to put an arm around him, or rest his chin on Tseng's shoulder, or smell his hair – and Tseng, who normally found this kind of neediness, this touchy-feeliness, impossible to tolerate, had discovered that he liked it, as long as Rufus was the one doing the touching.

So – Rufus's bare feet were resting on his naked thigh, and Tseng was stroking the top of Rufus's right foot with his left hand in a light-fingered, tickly, absent-minded kind of way, the way Rufus sometimes petted the cat, not as a prelude to anything more physical but as an end in itself, because it gave Rufus pleasure to have his feet caressed and it gave Tseng pleasure to do it. Long prehensile toes twitched under Tseng's touch in delicate spasms of bliss. Somewhere beneath the sofa, the cat was purring. A sleepy peacefulness filled the room.

"Tseng…?"

There was just that note of hesitation in Rufus's voice to put Tseng on the alert. He turned from his newspaper to find Rufus looking at him with an intense thoughtfulness, studying him like a puzzle to be deciphered, or a code to be broken, but before their eyes could meet Rufus quickly looked away - first at the ceiling, then at the floor, then at his own hand, resting on his chest.

"Yes?" said Tseng.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course. What is it?"

"Oh, just something I've been wondering about. You – well, you've slept with women before."

It was phrased as a statement, but inflected like a question. Rufus's cheeks flushed a delicate shade of pink as he spoke, surprising Tseng, who would have thought they had progressed far beyond the stage of being shy with each other about anything. He wondered what was troubling the boy now.

"I have," he said.

"Quite a few, I should think."

"Enough."

"How much counts as enough, precisely? Just out of interest."

"I can't give you a number."

"Can't? Or won't?" The jumpy blue eyes had finally come to rest on Tseng's face; he was conscious of their weight, their gravity, their penetration. "Is it really so unreasonable of me to want to know? You're in the privileged position of knowing everything there is to know about me, whereas I know nothing about you except what you choose to tell me. Naturally I'm curious. Who wouldn't be? Anyway, I'm not asking for anything so crude as an exact figure. I suppose what I really want to know is what your ratio is. Women to men. Surely you can tell me that?"

Tseng sought for an honest answer. "I can't tell you, because I don't keep score. And I've never thought of it that way."

Rufus' pale eyebrows drew together in confusion. "What way?"

"In categories. Men versus women. People are individuals." Though Tseng could just as easily have said, _people are all the same. A stranger is a stranger. Skin is skin._

"Are you seriously telling me you think there's no difference?" Rufus sounded more than astonished; indignant. "I don't know how you can say that. From my experience, it couldn't possibly _be_ more different."

"Your vast experience," said Tseng tenderly, affectionately, indulgently.

"Oh, I see. You're pulling rank on me now. That's hardly fair, considering you had the advantage of a ten-year head start. I may not have had your wealth of opportunities for putting it about, but I've certainly slept with enough girls to know just how different this is."

"And which gender do you prefer?"

Rufus's eyes widened. "I beg your pardon?"

"You asked me. Now I'm asking you."

Rufus opened his mouth, but checked himself, and instead of saying whatever had been on the tip of tongue, replied cautiously, "I don't know how to answer that."

Tseng's heart began to beat a little faster, unpleasantly so. He'd anticipated a different response. "Answer it honestly," he said.

"But I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. _You_ are my preference. You must know that. Sex with you is a completely different experience from anything I remember feeling with a girl. But then again, it's been years now. And I was so young. I hardly understood myself what I wanted. To be honest, I do wonder sometimes if it would be like this with any other man. I doubt it. And I can't even imagine what it would feel like now to sleep with a woman. Strange, I should think. And rather… unnatural." Rufus paused, chuckling softly, as if at a private joke.

"What is it?" asked Tseng.

"Oh, merely the irony. My old man was always so afraid that Lazard would turn out to be the queer in the family closet. What do you suppose has happened to Lazard, Tseng? Do you think he's still alive somewhere, still brooding about injustice and plotting Shinra's downfall?"

"I believe he's dead," said Tseng.

"Really? Well, I expect you're probably right. Though the prospect doesn't seem nearly as satisfying to me as it might once have done. More and more these days I find myself thinking of him. I wish I'd got to know him better –" Rufus yawned " - when I had the chance."

"You're tired. You should try to get some sleep."

"I have plenty of time to sleep when you're not here. And anyway, you haven't answered my question."

"Which question?"

"The question of who."

"Was that the question?" Tseng asked, thinking, o_f course it was; I should have known._

"It was always the question," Rufus assured him.

Even though Tseng had made it clear her name was never to be mentioned between them, Rufus still contrived to find ways to talk about her.

"No one you know," Tseng replied. This was almost certainly not true, given that Rufus's social acquaintance comprised the better part of upper Midgar, but it was a true answer to the question he was really asking, all the same.

"Hunh. Really? What about – Allegra Fortescue's sister? I remember seeing her sniffing round you at the rocket launch. She was miffed that you turned her down. I think you - hurt her feelings."

"I said, no one you know." Tseng allowed a little impatience to temper his voice.

"So you never – "

"No."

"And you haven't seen her since -"

"No."

"You didn't call her?"

"Rufus – " Tseng close his hand around the white foot and squeezed, feeling all the little bones move. "Enough, now."

"That doesn't hurt, you know. Feels quite nice, actually."

"I'm not trying to hurt you."

Blue eyes searched his face. "Are you telling me the truth?"

"I don't lie to you."

Rufus didn't looked entirely convinced. Tseng held his breath. He was afraid the answer wouldn't suffice, that Rufus might try to push still further into forbidden territory; might ask _but did you want to? Do you still?_

Then Rufus twitched his head to throw his fringe out of his eyes, a gesture as natural and delicate as the flick of a cat's ear – and he smiled, and Tseng breathed again, and it was as if a conversation that had been dragging on silently in the background for days had finally been resolved. Nudging Tseng's hand with his foot, Rufus gave another huge yawn and said drowsily, "Come on, don't stop. Do the other one now."

"You should try to sleep. Close your eyes. I'll wake you before I go."

"All right. But even when I'm asleep, I'm subliminally registering how good it feels, so don't stop."

Tseng resumed his attentions to Rufus's feet, and for a while the only sound to be heard from Rufus was his soft breathing. Every so often Tseng glanced over from his newspaper to see if he was asleep, but under their heavy, somnolent lids those blue eyes were undimmed, seeing things far beyond the four walls that confined him.

_Leverage_, thought Tseng. Reno's word; Reno's expectation. But the others thought along the same lines. In the eyes of a Turk, everything that was not a Turk was, ultimately, a tool. Turks were practical people.

Could he do that to Rufus? And – if their backs were against the wall; if the lives of the others were at stake; if he had to choose – would Rufus understand the reason why?

Rufus must have sensed that Tseng was thinking of him, for he opened his eyes and smiled, a lazy, happy, sleepy smile. "You do know you're no good for me, don't you?" he said. "And shall I tell you why? Because you make me content with my lot. It's like that feeling one gets after indulging in one of my own old man's twelve course banquets. I just don't want anything else. I can't even find the energy to move. There's so much that needs to be done, but somehow none of it seems to matter right now. I feel as if I could be perfectly satisfied going on like this forever, day after day, with the door firmly locked, and the world outside at bay…"

It was as if the previous night's outpouring of fearful rage and naked frustration had never happened. _One day it's one thing, the next another_, thought Tseng_; he doesn't know himself what he wants, or what he feels. _ Aloud he said, "You sound like you're talking in your sleep."

"Perhaps I am. I do dream of it sometimes. Don't you? Walking out of here, turning our backs on everything and going somewhere to start from scratch. That would be an adventure, wouldn't it? New names. New lives. You could be a… a waiter –"

"A waiter?" Tseng protested.

"A _head_ waiter," said Rufus drowsily. "In a starched shirt front and a black bow tie. You have all the qualifications. Your manners are impeccable. You know how to make a suit look good. And you're so intimidating none of the clientele would – " he broke off for an enormous yawn – " _dare_ to complain that the medium steak they'd ordered was a little too well done. I think you'd make a magnificent head waiter."

Laughter rumbled in Tseng's chest. "What nonsense."

"Well, all right then…" Rufus yawned again. "You don't have to be a waiter if you don't like. We don't have to do anything… we don't want." He was mumbling, more than half-asleep. "We could get… a house, somewhere… By the sea…"

Tseng remembered a lemon-coloured villa, pots of red geraniums and a swinging hammock, sunlight filtering through the striped awning, miles of golden sand stretching to the surf beyond - and, glimpsed through the bedroom door, a slumbering lover…

_Charlie got sick of it in the end, though._

Rufus had stopped talking. Tseng saw that the boy had fallen into a light doze, though his unseeing eyes were still half-open. Putting the newspaper down on the table, Tseng leaned back into the sofa, resting his head on his hand, and gave himself over to the languid pleasure of watching Rufus sleep.

He must have drifted off himself, for when he looked again at his PHS almost an hour had passed. "I'm awake," Rufus murmured. "Tseng, I like it when you watch me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you're doing it because you want to, and not because you have to."

Tseng smiled.

Rufus yawned, stretched, and sat up, completely alert. "Well, come on," he said, slapping Tseng's knee. "Wake up, old man. Time's marching on. We've got work to do. You set up your laptop. I'll make the tea."

* * *

About a week later, at seven o'clock in the evening, Tseng was walking through Sector 8 on his way to see Rufus, when Reno suddenly materialized at his elbow.

"Hey Boss, we gotta stop meeting like this."

_Damn_, thought Tseng, _what does he want? Does it have to be right now? This is going to hold me up. _"Have you been tailing me?" he demanded.

"Nah, not exactly – more like waiting to catch up with you. But someone else was."

A chill crept over Tseng. He'd been followed, and he hadn't noticed? "Who?"

"PSM. Pair of 'em. Don't worry – I got them from behind. They never saw me. I left them sleeping it off in a doorway."

"Well… good job," said Tseng, thinking,_ was the Old Man right when he told me I was getting sloppy?_

"What's up with you these days?" asked Reno, eyes narrowing as he peered into Tseng's face. "You getting old or something? Those eyes in the back of your head need glasses? First you let some squaddies get the drop on you, and then you don't realise you're being followed even though those two guys back there were sticking out like a couple of king behemoths. You know, Tseng, if this keeps up, your mother and I ain't gonna be able to let you go out on your own."

Beneath Reno's banter there was real concern, reminding Tseng – as if he needed the reminder - of how much his team depended on him, to hold them together and to give them direction. "I have a lot on my mind," he said, recognizing it even as he said it for the feeble excuse that it was.

Reno, however, seemed to find it acceptable. "Yeah, I know, Boss. Rude said it. It's hardest on you. Just…. Be more careful. Where are you heading, anyway? Guard duty?"

"Yes."

"Mind if I walk with you?"

Tseng could hardly object, though he hoped Reno wasn't intending to keep him company all the way there. They turned and began to walk in the direction of the reactor, Tseng very upright with his shoulders back, Reno slouching along beside him, hands in pockets.

"I gotta add to your worries, Boss," said Reno after a minute. "Sorry. But it's about the V.P."

Tseng stopped.

"I think we should keep moving," said Reno. "You don't know who's watching."

They began walking again. Tseng inwardly braced himself and said, "All right, tell me."

"The V.P.'s screwing somebody. One of us, I mean."

It did actually cross Tseng's mind, for the merest fraction of a split-second, to shoot Reno on the spot. Really it was more of an instinct, the deeply ingrained reaction to any threat of danger that had him reaching automatically for his gun. His muscles tensed; the fingers of his right hand twitched. He clenched them into a fist, then forced that fist to relax, to open.

Reno was waiting for some response. But what should he say? What would be the natural thing to say? How would the Tseng that Reno thought he knew respond to such a statement? Tseng had no idea. Apparently he didn't know himself well enough to pretend to be that self. Which was ludicrous… and more than a little ironic.

Tseng gave his odd, strangled bark of a laugh. Reno scowled. "Shit, Boss, it's not funny."

_Not funny at all_, thought Tseng. But at least Reno didn't seem to suspect him, yet. Thank god for small mercies, and the not-so-small. He had been granted a breathing space, and the vital thing right now was to find out just how much Reno knew.

"What – what makes you think so?" he asked.

"That phone call business, for one thing. I've asked around. Nobody was calling me. He was definitely trying to make a call, and if he wasn't calling the old man, then who the hell else would he be calling? And haven't you noticed how different he's been lately? He's like the cat that got the cream _and_ ate the canary. The little shit can't even be arsed to wind me up any more. He just lies around with that dumb smile on his face, staring off into space like he's discovered the secret of the universe. There's only one thing I know of can make a man look like that. And what I want to know is – which one of us is it?"

"You think it's one of your colleagues?"

"No, I think it's that chick he picked up on his regular Friday night down the boozer." Reno gave Tseng a grimly sarcastic look. "You know, Boss, I told you this would happen. Didn't I? The V.P.'s not a fucking eunuch. I told you months ago you should do something about it. But you just slapped me down. Why?"

"It was – impractical – "

"I could have worked something out. I'm not stupid."

"I have never thought you were, Reno, I assure you."

"Yeah, well…" Reno sounded slightly mollified. "I understand people, you see. I get what makes them tick. Take you, for instance. You don't like things to change. Deep down in your heart of hearts you want to think the V.P. is still ten years old. Am I right, hunh? Sure I am. But guess what, Boss. Our little golden chocobo is all grown up now, and if a grown man with all his parts in working order is shut up in one room for years on end never seeing anyone but the same few people, shit's gonna happen. That's human nature."

They walked on side by side, Reno reining back his loping stride to keep pace with Tseng's more measured steps. Tseng's initial moment of panic had subsided; he was now able to ask in his usual steady, quiet voice, "Who do you think it is?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out. We can eliminate Rude right off because he doesn't swing that way, and anyway he's got the hots for those twin turbines down in Sector Seven. Obviously it's not me or you. I don't know what the V.P's tastes are – prior evidence doesn't give us a whole lot to go on – but my money's on one of the girls. Maybe the Honey. She's pretty ambitious."

"Ambitious?"

"Jeez, Boss, come on. This _is_ the most eligible bachelor in Midgar we're talking about. So, yeah. Ambitious. I'd say it's a factor."

"You think she'd cheat on Tys?"

Reno flashed a grin, his white teeth slightly parted. "In my best case scenario, he finds out and kills her."

"Reno -"

"OK, OK. But seriously, it could be any of them. The V.P.'s pretty easy on the eye, in case you hadn't noticed. Hell, if he wasn't the President's son, and if I hadn't known him since he was ten years old, and if I didn't work for Shinra, and if he wasn't our fucking _hostage_, I might consider tapping that myself… "

_He's not doing this deliberately_, Tseng reminded himself, taking a deep breath. He couldn't possibly know how close to the bone each of his points cut; it was only a joke, only Reno being Reno –

"I'm afraid it's Veev," said Reno in a different, more serious tone.

"What - Aviva?" Tseng stuttered. The wild inaccuracy of Reno's guess was so far off the mark that he felt, crazily, like laughing - but he managed to fight off the urge and say, with a dryness that Reno failed to pick up on, "Is that - likely?"

"You bet it is. That kid's such a soft touch. She puts on this tough act but she's a real sucker for a sob story. And you know how the V.P. can talk. Yeah, I think he could smooth-talk her into bed, no problem. If it's one of the others, then I'd assume they're in it for what they can get out of it. But," Reno's voice softened, "You know Veev, Boss. She puts her heart and soul into everything she does. I'm worried she could end up getting really hurt. The V.P. isn't going to stay locked in that bunker for the rest of his life. Right now his choices are pretty limited, so he's making the best of things, but once he's free he'll have his pick of women, girls from his own class. He won't want to keep screwing around with a Turk. I think he'll use her as long as it's convenient and then dump her when he doesn't need her any more, and – "

"Reno, stop" ordered Tseng. His heart was knocking against his ribs, but he kept his voice cool. "This is mere speculation. You have no evidence, none whatsoever."

"I'm just saying – "

"No, you are not 'just saying'." Tseng came to a halt. Reno also pulled up, and Tseng turned to confront him "You are spreading gossip. That's unacceptable, and I won't tolerate it. There are no grounds for believing that what you're suggesting is true. You've got hold of the wrong end of the stick before. Have you forgotten how that turned out?"

To himself he was thinking, _yes, that sounds more like me. I should have taken this tone with him right from the start._

Reno scowled mutinously. "So because of a mistake I made years ago, I'm in the wrong forever, is that it?"

"You should have learned by now that before you jump to conclusions, you need some proof."

"You want _more_ proof that the little shit's a manipulating mindfucker -"

"That's enough! Five minute ago you were telling me that nothing could be more natural than Rufus sleeping with one of my Turks, and now you're saying it's some tactic of his designed to manipulate me? Get your story straight, Reno, before you come bothering me with it."

"I never said _you_," Reno replied.

"What?"

"I never said he was trying to manipulate _you_. Not just you. You're his main target, obviously. But when he fucks with one of us, he fucks us all up."

"Or he could be in love," said Tseng recklessly, "Have you considered that possibility?"

"Yeah, that's likely. Love and warm fuzzies. The Shinras are just full of it. Get real, Boss." Reno sighed, and his shoulders slumped. Raising his hands palms outwards in the universal gesture of defeat, he took a step back from Tseng and said, "OK, fine. I've done my duty. I've informed you of the problem. It's yours now, Mr Director. You deal with it." Wheeling about, he began to walk away.

"Come back here," said Tseng.

In slow motion Reno rewound himself until he was once more facing his superior, hands shoved into his pockets, eyes not quite meeting Tseng's own.

"Have you mentioned your suspicions to anyone else?" Tseng asked him.

Reno's face twisted in a sneer. "Sure did, Boss. You know me and my big mouth. I sent an email round the whole building and took out a full page ad in the Shinra Times just to be on the safe side – "

Tseng cut him short with a look. "Don't try my patience. If I find out that you've been making unfounded accusations against Aviva or anyone else – "

"I'm not accusing her!" Reno exclaimed, eye widening in surprise. "I'm trying to protect her – "

"You are going the wrong way about it. This is the kind of idle talk that can kill morale and decimate teams, and given our current situation I would have hoped that even you would see the need to put a clamp on your tongue. So let me be crystal clear. You will not speak about this. To anyone. Is that understood?"

Reno jammed his hands deeper into his pockets. He was so sure he was right. Tseng could read in his face, in his jutting jaw and slitted eyes, his angry frustration at being doubted, his impatience with what he saw as Tseng's obdurate refusal to _see_.

Yet despite this certainty, he yielded. "Understood," he muttered, "Sir."

He knew he was right, but he believed in his Director.

And though Tseng was no stranger to lies, the guilt was almost more than he could bear. He needed to get Reno away from him, _now_.

"Don't you have work to do?" he asked harshly.

Reno sloped off in the direction of the office. Tseng stood and watched him go, and even when Reno was out of sight he continued to stand there, momentarily undecided about what to do next. Continuing on down to the bunker felt unthinkable right now. It seemed like no matter which way he turned, he would be forced to betray someone.

Across the street there was a pavement bar with an empty table. He walked over and took a seat. "Gin and dry vermouth, no ice," he told the attentive waiter. For a while he sat nursing his drink, watching the ebb and flow of the people passing by on their way to whatever the evening held in store for them. From time to time he thought he glimpsed a flash of pink, but it was never her.

Draining his glass, he took out his phone.

"Rude, I've been - held up. You'll have to hold on there. I'll send Mink to relieve you."

"Problem?" asked Rude.

"No, there's no problem."

"You said emergencies only - "

"I know. I know what I said. Just put – put your colleague on. I need to talk to him."

"Colleague. Right."

The phone was passed from one hand to another. "Hullo," said Rufus. He sounded bored.

"Something's come up. I can't make it. I'm sorry."

"Not to worry. We'll see you when we see you. My friend here is three moves away from checkmating me, so if you don't mind, I'm rather eager to get on with our game…"

"Yes of course. I only wanted to talk to you."

"That's fine, then. Thank you for letting me know." Rufus hung up.

_What a good actor he is, _thought Tseng.

So good, it hurt.

* * *

_Thank you for reading. _

_Next chapter: the return of Reeve, and more skullduggery!_


	45. The Teller of Fortunes Turns a Card

**CHAPTER 45: THE TELLER OF FORTUNES TURNS A CARD  
**_**In which Tseng and Rufus manage to avoid the issue, news arrives from afar, and help is offered from an unexpected quarter**_

_**

* * *

**_

Reno would keep his word; Tseng was confident of that. He would say nothing to the others. But he would continue to suspect them. All of them. With the exception of Rude and Tseng himself, everyone in the department was under Reno's suspicion, and unless Tseng took measures to stop it, the insidious poison of mistrust would soon begin to corrode his team from the inside.

There were times when he thought, _to hell with it, I'll tell them_. Summon them all into his office, give them the truth straight up, and let the chips fall where they might. What a relief that would be.

He imagined Mink shrugging, indifferent; Hunter and Tys sniggering; the darkness gathering in Cavour's face; Rosalind shockedastonishedspeechless; the scars tightening in Knox's cheek, and Rude turning his head slightly to look away in that gesture that spoke volumes. Skeeter's blue eyes round like dinner plates, not sure what to think, but ready, if someone else took the lead, to go with the flow. Aviva, possibly, rising to her Director's defense: _Hey, come on guys, it's not like anyone's died… _And finally Reno, silencing her with a look, tipping the scales. _Are you fucking __insane__, boss? He tried to__ exterminate us__. Oh, but not you. Not you. We haven't forgotten –_

He imagined seeing himself change shape in the mirror of their eyes, and he knew he could not tell them.

He thought then of sending Reno away, manufacturing some vital assignment that would necessitate posting him overseas for several months, or years. But that would cause as many problems as it solved. Teamwork was a delicate balance. If Rosalind was his right-hand woman, the one he could trust never to screw up administrative matters, Reno was his left-hand man, the lynchpin of the Turks. Over the years, in ways so subtle Tseng himself had not always been aware of them, he had become the de facto second-in-command, keeping the younger ones in line with apparently effortless ease. If Tseng removed him it might destablise the entire department, possibly to the point where they became unable to withstand the pressures being laid upon them. No, he couldn't risk losing Reno, either.

He would have to talk to Rufus. Soon. Warn him of – _insist _on – the need for secrecy and discretion. And whatever that conversation might lead to.

Merely finding an opening for such a conversation would be difficult. Both of them had understood from the start that their relationship needed to be kept hidden – or so Tseng had believed. Or had wanted to believe. When they were together they sometimes talked about the past: their own pasts, or the ancient history of the Shinra corporation, trying to make sense of them, but mostly it was the current state of the world and their plans for the company's future that occupied them. These were safe topics. Of the present – of their own immediate situation, and what might realistically await them a few weeks or months ahead – they did not speak; Rufus's one explosion of rage and frustration after Tseng's return from Junon was not mentioned again. Every part of that topic had become a mine in a minefield, and whenever Tseng found himself stumbling into it, he'd quickly backed out again.

The bunker had become Tseng's refuge, the one place where he could lay aside his present worries and dream for a while about a future worth having. When he was with Rufus, all things seemed possible. As soon as he stepped back into the real world, of course, that fragile bubble of optimism burst, and he recognized it for what it was, improbable and ephemeral. Like all good things its time was running out; but maybe, thought Tseng, he could make it last just a little longer. And so, as day succeeded day, he put off and put off speaking to Rufus about Reno, until, in the end, Rufus was the one who took the initiative and raised the subject.

. Tseng had his laptop open on his knees; Rufus was sitting pressed up against him, leaning his chin on Tseng's shoulder while he read the document being displayed on the screen, a recently published annual report from a small solar-panel manufacturer in Costa, which was on the verge of going into receivership. The two of them, Chief Turk and nominal Vice-President, had agreed there would be no more forays into the stock market for the time being - or rather, Tseng had determined that with Scarlet's suspicions aroused the risk of exposure was too great, and Rufus had not attempted to deny it, adding that in any case there wasn't much they could do without money, and all his money lay captive in his bank accounts, frozen ever since Corel. Hacking into them would have been child's play, but Tseng had forbidden it.

"I know there must be _some_ way, though," said Rufus. "We're not thinking creatively enough. Coffee?" he asked, rising to his bare feet.

Tseng's efforts to teach Rufus patience had so far met with failure; pleasure before business remained the rule in the bunker. Having discarded his suit several hours earlier, Rufus now wore a plain white singlet and a pair of loose black silk pajama trousers riding low on his hipbones. Tseng shut the laptop when he stood up, and leaned back against the sofa cushions to enjoy the sight of him moving about in the kitchen, a study in contrasts: black against white; textured fabric, smooth skin; fluid silk, solid muscles.

While he waited for the kettle to boil, Rufus picked an apple from the bowl and came to lean in the doorway. With a loud crunch he bit into the apple, chewed, swallowed, twitched his head to throw the hair from his eyes, and gave Tseng a wide smile. Looking at him standing there, Tseng's whole being was seized with a rush of love so violent it was almost frightening, even for – no, especially for a man like himself, accustomed to being in command. He could never quite free himself of the conviction that there was something not entirely sane about harbouring such intense feelings for another human being.

Rufus set a mug of black coffee in front of the Turk and, holding his tea in both hands, sat down opposite him on the sofa that Rude had mended. "Tseng," he said, "Have you noticed anything odd about Reno recently?"

The question was not entirely unanticipated; Reno was perceptive, but Rufus was no less acute. Nevertheless, Tseng's stomach clenched with apprehension. "What makes you say that?"

"He's become even more obnoxiously inquisitive than usual. I think he may suspect something."

"Why would he do that? Have you given him any reason to?"

Though Tseng hardly needed to ask. He knew Rufus couldn't resist flirting with danger. How often had he left it until the last minute to clean up and get dressed? How often had he forgotten to lock the door – almost as if he wanted one of the others to walk in and find them together? Ever since his confrontation with Reno, Tseng had been wondering what others things Rufus said and did to give them away when he wasn't around to restrain him; what hints he dropped, what meaningful looks and pregnant silences he employed to tease the other Turks, his wardens. What Tseng couldn't decide was whether Rufus did this because of an unuttered wish to bring their relationship into the open, or because it gave him a thrill to walk the razor's edge. Something of both, most likely.

"He caught me with his phone," Rufus admitted.

"And you didn't foresee that happening when you picked it up?"

"It wasn't deliberate. He was quicker than I expected. He sees too much. You need to take him off the duty roster, Tseng. I don't enjoy being the object of close scrutiny by one of my own Turks."

"They are not your Turks," Tseng reminded him. "If I took Reno off the duty roster, it would only confirm his suspicions, and point the finger straight at me. Many people have made the mistake of underestimating his intelligence, and lived to regret it. Don't be one of them. You should keep a closer guard on yourself when he's around."

"_He_ should learn to keep his nose out of business that doesn't concern him."

Tseng's laugh escaped him before he could stop it. "He's not going to change. Reno is Reno."

"And_ Reno_ is too presumptuous," Rufus replied with a scowl, "Not to mention ill-bred, foul-mouthed, arrogant, and lippy. He always has been. Veld seemed to find it amusing. Apparently you do, too. I'm surprised at you, Tseng. I wouldn't have thought you'd tolerate insubordination."

"He's not insubordinate. You're confusing insubordination with frankness. And lack of pretense."

"Why are you defending him? I'm telling you he _is_ insubordinate – if not to you, then to me. You've heard how he speaks to me. He's far too familiar, and I don't appreciate his attitude. He has no proper sense of where the boundaries are. In fact, I'm not sure he realizes that there _are_ limits."

"I'll admit he can be a little – casual – "

"For God's sake, Tseng, he tried to take me to a whorehouse when I was fourteen year old!"

"Do you _still_ bear him a grudge for that?" Tseng exclaimed, surprised. "He only did it because he thought you would be grateful."

"That was his way of currying favour?"

"No, Rufus. I mean he thought he was doing _you_ a favour."

Briefly the young man was silent, mouth bent thoughtfully. Then he let himself fall sideways, twisting as he fell and throwing his feet up, so that his body splayed across the sofa. One hand tangled in his hair; the other flopped down to the floor as he said, with a little of his old adolescent sullenness: "Of course he did. Because it's every boy's most cherished dream to lose his virginity to some bored, snarky tart in a tacky bee costume, isn't it? Especially when it's more than likely his old man had his hands all over her just the day or two before. And with the added frisson of _Reno_ standing there listening on the other side of the door, keeping one eye on his watch and making mental notes so he could report back to Veld and my father that the mission had been successfully accomplished – yes, really, how could I have failed to appreciate so much concern for my well-being? What a nasty little ingrate I was."

"Sarcasm," said Tseng gently, "Makes your mouth ugly."

"I didn't need, or want, or ask for, his interference," Rufus replied. "He should know his place and stay out of my affairs. There's an element of hypocrisy in all this, you know, when one considers that _your_ department were the ones who put such a cramp in my life. I was never allowed to make a single decision for myself. Every waking moment was run to a schedule. First my nannies, and then my teachers, and then my tutors, and my old man and Veld – everybody was always _organizing_ me. No one asked me if I wanted to leave school. No one asked if I _wanted_ to be Vice-President. I was only _fifteen_, Tseng!"

"I often wondered what you really wanted," Tseng admitted. "I should have asked."

"I wish you had. I would have liked you to. Not that it would have made any difference. You had no more freedom than I did. Your job was to watch me, and mine… was to be watched, twenty-four hours a day, like one of Hojo's labs specimens, trapped in some kind of inescapable glass jar. Always conscious that you had your beady eyes trained on me, and that every move I made was going be relayed to my old man and then filed in triplicate for future generations of Turks to peruse at their leisure. Have you any idea, Tseng, how difficult it was to escape from your hawk-like vigilance long enough to be alone just for five minutes?"

"Nevertheless," said Tseng, looking him in the eye, "I think there were many things you managed to do without our knowledge."

Rufus held his gaze for a long moment. There was no apology in those blue eyes.

"I couldn't go on living like that," he said.

"I know," Tseng replied.

Rufus's mouth turned down. He closed his eyes, and laid an arm across his face.

Tseng waited.

Rufus said, "Down here, with you, is the first time in all my life that I've had what could be called a private life…"

_And I don't want it to end._

He didn't need to say it. The unvoiced thought was in both their minds.

"Please, Rufus," said Tseng, "Try to be more careful. Not just around Reno. With all of them."

"I will. I will. I promise." Rufus stretched a hand towards him over the coffee table. "Let's not talk about this any more. Just come here. You're much too far away, sitting all the way over there…"

* * *

_You do realise what you've done, don't you? _the voice of reason whispered in Tseng's ear as, a few hours later, he walked through Midgar's early morning streets on his way to the Shinra Building. _You've made yourself his hostage to fortune – you, who claim to care for him. How could you have let that happen, when you know the odds of you being alive six months from now are slim, at best? What do you think will happen to him when you die? He'll go to pieces. _

Tseng did not believe it. Rufus was stronger than that.

_But you're not, are you? You're having second thoughts. Yes, you are. You're afraid to die now. Aren't you? You're afraid to leave him. He needs you. He relies on you. That boy matters more to you now than the Commander. Doesn't he?_

Tseng could not deny it; refused to concede it.

After a short pause, the little voice began on a different tack: _Do you honestly think he's given up hope of persuading you to kill his father for him? Isn't it at least possible that he's merely biding his time, waiting for the opportune moment, when he can catch you at your lowest ebb? Ironic, considering you're the one who's been preaching the virtues of patience to him -_

Tseng tried to shut his mind, but the voice would not be silenced. _You know, in some ways it would be better for everyone's sake if Reno was right. Better for them, and better for your Rufus, if he really was the manipulative mindfucker they think he is, using you for what he can get -_

No. Reno was wrong. He was wrong about Rufus. Tseng had come to doubt many things he'd once believed to be true, but not that.

- _While he pursues his own agenda. Someone clever. Ruthless. Driven. Someone who can take charge of them once you're gone. Someone to give them direction. They'll need that. Leadership. __Real__ leadership. Because let's not kid ourselves here, Director. You've made a hash of things…._

With the jagged teeth of these thoughts chewing on his conscience, Tseng was back at the office long before he felt ready to be there. He found Tys and Rosalind waiting for him: Tys to deliver a report on his recent mission to the Grasslands; Rosalind with a handful of phone messages, and the news that Director Tuesti had called the previous evening to ask where he was. She'd parried the question by asking Reeve why he wanted to know, but he'd said it wasn't urgent. Tseng unlocked his door, took the slips of paper from Rosalind, and ushered Tys inside.

Reports of Angeal sightings had continued to land on Tseng's desk, and not just Angeal, but Genesis, too. The Red Leather fanclub and the Keepers of Honour had recently put out a special joint edition of their newsletters summarizing all the sightings to date; it ran to a dozen pages, closely typed. To the Turks had fallen the task of investigating these incidents. The majority could be dismissed out of hand as either the work of scammers (like the woman in Icicle Inn who'd claimed Genesis was the father of her six-month-old twins; she'd been hoping to screw maintenance out of Shinra, but Rosalind had put her straight) or the bizarre delusions of fans unable to let go of their idols (the housewife in Kalm who swore blind that Angeal had appeared in her kitchen to give her the winning numbers for a dual forecast on the chocobo races; the bank clerk from Junon who'd visited Sephiroth in his new home on the moon). When all the frauds and crazies had been eliminated, a handful of sightings remained to be taken seriously. Tseng had put up a map in his office to track their locations: red pins for Genesis, white for Angeal.

"Why don't we have a fan club, sir?" asked Tys, flipping through the newsletter while Tseng inserted another white-headed pin at a point ten kilometers north of the Zolom Marshes. "We're sexy enough."

Tys had just come back from checking out the story of a chocobo farmer who'd seen something strange in his barn, a large, winged creature that gave off a fierce radiance, but was so gentle it hadn't spooked the birds. It sounded very much like the creature in Aerith's church, though since Aerith's monster never left its perch in the rafters, the thing the farmer had seen had to be a different one, or something else entirely. At any rate, the authenticity of the sighting could not be ruled out. Hence the white pin.

"A celebrity Turk," said Tseng, turning back to Tys, "Would be an oxymoron."

"Oh, I don't know," remarked a voice from behind them, "Veld did always have an eye for the photogenic."

The two Turks looked round to see Director Reeve Tuesti standing in the open doorway. Tseng was unable to hide his surprise. He couldn't remember the last time Reeve had visited their floor, but he thought it had probably been seven years ago, when Natalya died.

"May I come in?" asked Reeve.

"Yes, of course," said Tseng. "Tys, that'll be all for now."

Tys was visibly reluctant to go. He was, as all good Turks should be, extremely nosy, and had a well-developed sense for when things just didn't feel right. "What's _he_ want, Boss?" he whispered in Tseng's ear.

"We'll see," Tseng answered curtly. Closing the door on Tys, he turned his full attention to Reeve.

The Director of Urban Planning was looking photogenic himself this morning: his hand-tailored, dark blue pinstripe suit jacket hung smoothly from his shoulders, the tie-pin in his silver paisley tie was an oval of lapis lazuli, with cufflinks to match, and his immaculate shirt was off-white in some indescribably subtle way. Tseng thought there were probably words for all these different, finely graded hues of blue and white and silver that Reeve wore, and he was sure that Reeve could put a name to each one. For all his brilliance, there was, to Tseng's assessing eye, something profoundly frivolous about this man.

Reeve had walked over to the map and was studying it thoughtfully. "There's no pattern to these sightings," he observed.

"None we can discern," Tseng replied. He wasn't surprised that Reeve had deduced what the pins represented, but he did wonder why Reeve had come to see him, and how long it would take him to get to the point.

"And the black ones? Not - Sephiroth?" asked Reeve doubtfully.

"Sephiroth is dead."

"One hopes so, certainly."

"There's no hoping about it. One of my men witnessed his death. I'd say that's pretty conclusive."

"You saw Angeal die."

"Angeal _is_ dead. Whatever people are seeing, it's not him."

"What do these represent, then?" Reeve touched a fingertip to one of the black-headed pins.

Tseng hesitated, remembering the ventilation hatch where he knew a bug had been planted. "A person of interest."

"Zack Fair, I presume?"

Tseng winced inwardly, but said nothing.

"Only three pins," Reeve went on. "Strange, isn't it?"

"Strange?"

"Human nature. Men whom we know are dead are seen walking and talking in the four corners of the earth, but the one man we know is alive, nobody sees."

"Living men often have good reasons to keep themselves hidden."

"And what about Veld?" asked Reeve, looking Tseng straight in the eye. "No pins for him?"

"What you see is what we have."

Reeve opened his mouth as if to speak again, then hesitated; his gaze moved quickly left and right. Beneath the polished veneer, he was nervous about something. "Can we - talk?" he asked, dropping his voice and leaning significantly on the last word.

His shiftiness was making Tseng uneasy. Reeve's unhappiness with certain aspects of company policy was no secret, mostly because Reeve, impractical dreamer, unworldly genius, doodler, ditherer, and incurable optimist, was incapable of keeping a secret; his face was an open book. If Reeve had something on his mind that could only be spoken in whispers, then Tseng didn't think he wanted any part of it. He had enough on his hands already.

"We are talking," he pointed out.

Once again Reeve glanced around. "I had a call last night from an old friend of yours," he said. He must have seen the flicker of hope in Tseng's eyes, because he quickly added, "She's someone you haven't seen for a while, I think. She said the two of you had an argument a few months ago about a bike she'd lent, and that I should mention it to you. She seemed to think it was important. I was rather surprised that she should call me. I don't know her at all, really, but she said a mutual friend gave her my cell number. Does that make sense to you?"

_ So you didn't come here to waste my time, _thought Tseng.

To Reeve he said, "Let's go have breakfast."

.

He thought at first of taking Reeve to Augusto's, but its usefulness made it a place he wanted to use sparingly, and in any case it would have taken too long to shake off the man who was tailing them. They went instead to the cafeteria on the top floor of Les Marroniers, where they could hide their voices behind the wall of noise emitted by the crowd of ladies who shopped - and who were now fluttering excitedly at the sudden appearance of two senior Shinra executives in their midst.

"It's like the trill of a thousand birdcages," Reeve observed.

A booth was quickly found for them. They slid into their seats and sat facing each other. Scarlett's anonymous spy had no such luck; he was left to watch them through the plate glass windows separating the cafeteria from the lingerie department. Tseng wondered how long it would be before he was asked by the store detective to move on.

"Is your floor really bugged?" Reeve asked him.

"We've found a few."

"And your PHS?"

"It's possible."

"An ironic turning of the tables, you must admit," Reeve observed wryly. "How do you manage to get your work done under such conditions?"

"We're adaptable. Director, tell me what Cissnei said."

"She wants you to go down there. She's seen Zack Fair."

Tseng nodded. He had guessed as much.

Reeve went on, "She couldn't be too specific, but I gather there's been a fight of some sort."

"With who?"

"She wouldn't say outright. My hunch is Genesis."

Tseng's jaw muscles tightened. "When?"

"Yesterday afternoon. I must say, I'm – rather surprised you haven't already been informed through official channels."

"Officially, Zack Fair is the army's target. What time did Cissnei call you?"

"About seven last night. I tried calling you, and got directed to your voice mail. Then I tried looking for you. You're a hard man to locate. Your staff don't give much away."

"Did you tell them it was urgent?"

"Rosalind asked if it was an emergency. I said that I supposed it was not."

"Damn," said Tseng under his breath. "Gongaga will be crawling with security by now. Director Tuesti, did Cissnei give any reason for calling _you_ with this information?"

"As I said, apparently someone gave her my number. Aside from that… perhaps because I'm safe?" A self-deprecating smile turned down the corners of Reeve's mouth. "I don't threaten anybody. No one listens to me, and no one concerns themselves with what I do. It's all maintenance now, anyway. My funding's been cut back to the bone. The President's lost interest in completing Sector Six. I'm becoming another Palmer, Tseng; I'm well aware of it. Who would bother to monitor my private calls?"

_Fair enough_, thought Tseng. They had, in fact, abandoned the routine tapping of Reeve's and Palmer's phone lines months ago; it was just too low down on their list of priorities.

He asked, "Who is this friend who gave her your number?"

"I don't know. I presumed it must have been Veld."

Tseng acknowledged the possibility. The Commander could have given her the number before he banished her, for use in emergencies. Veld and Reeve had never been friends, exactly, but he'd trusted Reeve to some extent - as much as he'd ever trusted anyone outside the Turks.

Tseng was prepared to accept Reeve's explanation for why Cissnei had called him, at least until he had a better one. What remained to be explained was why Reeve had agreed to get involved. Tseng hoped he had some better reason than boredom.

"Are you trying to help us?" he asked pointblank.

"I'd like to."

"Why?"

"Because – " An odd look came into Reeve's face, a kind of diffidence, or sheepishness, as if he was about to own up to some foolish thing he'd done, something slightly embarassing. "Because many years ago, when I first joined this company, it was out of a desire to do some good in the world. That probably surprises you."

"Less than you'd think."

"Is that so?" Reeve smiled wryly. "Well, I'll take that as a compliment, though I suspect it wasn't intended as such. Tseng, I don't expect you to comment on what I'm about to say, but you must be aware that there's a rumour going around that you and the Turks are planning to save Commander Veld. I know it's what I'd do if I were in your shoes. I'm pretty sure it's the reason Scarlet's on your case. And I do _hate_ that woman," he added with feeling.

Tseng felt a ripple of empathy. All the same, there were many people who hated Scarlet; it was not a sufficient reason to make an ally out of them. Turks worked best alone. It wasn't that he thought Reeve untrustworthy. But he doubted whether the man was entirely _solid_.

"This company could be so much more than it is," Reeve went on. "There's _so much_ potential to do good, but it's being wasted. Things used to be better than this, when Veld was with us. If he'd been with us in the boardroom that day, Scarlet would never have got the go-ahead to destroy Corel. I'm not saying he was a good man – I'm sorry, Tseng, but you know it's true. He was a hard man, and a ruthless man, but he wasn't wasteful, or cruel, and he 'hae a cannie heid', as my mother would say. One knew where one stood with him. The President listened to him. You just don't carry the same weight, upstairs. That's not your fault. You're a different generation. As am I."

Tseng shot a sidelong glance over at Scarlett's spy, who was pretending to look through a rail of nightgowns while watching them from under his eyebrows.

"Scarlet's going to ruin this company," sighed Reeve.

"I can't take issue with that."

"Tseng – where's Rufus?"

The leap of the heart; the spike of anxiety; the inward smile. None of this was allowed to show on the surface. Tseng merely replied, "Safe."

Reeve nodded; apparently he had been expecting some such answer. He was clearly longing to hear the whole story, but it was equally clear that he knew there was no point in asking. So he said, "Does he have any idea –"

"He knows everything."

The waitress arrived with their food. Reeve was handed a plate of devilled kidneys on toast. Tseng had ordered a mushroom omelette, but he wasn't hungry any more. Neither, it seemed, was Reeve. He poked at the kidney slices with his fork, then put it down and said, "I do have one other, personal reason for helping you. Lazard was my friend. That doesn't mean I endorse what he did. But I'd like to know whether he's dead or alive, at least. I think that Genesis could tell us… and if you can't persuade Genesis to talk, I don't know who can."

"Eat," was all Tseng said in reply, picking up his knife and rolling his eyes towards the plate glass window, on the other side of which the spy was busy checking the prices on boxed sets of bra-and-pants combos.

"We're being watched?" asked Reeve. "Right now?"

"Yes. Fortunately, they're not very skilled." Tseng began to eat his omelette, talking between mouthfuls. "Director Tuesti, please don't think I don't appreciate the trouble you've gone to to bring me this news. But I'm unsure what to do next. It may be difficult for me to get to Gongaga. I've had no actual constraints put on my movements, yet, but as you know we're no longer allowed to fly anywhere out of Midgar without taking someone from PSM along. The bodyguards need bodyguards now, it seems."

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodies," Reeve smiled.

Tseng allowed this gratuitous little flourish of scholarship to pass without comment, and continued, "If Scarlet thinks I'm taking an interest in what's happening down in Gongaga, she'll try to stop me from going there – or give orders for someone from PSM to stay glued to my side the entire time."

"I thought as much. But fear not, I have a plan. I've ordered a helicopter – it's currently on standby waiting to take me to Costa del Sol. Why don't you come with me? We can charter a private helicopter in Costa and you can fly me down to Gongaga yourself. That should keep us one jump ahead of her."

"What reason could you give for wanting to go to Gongaga?"

"Oh, I'll think of something on the way."

Tseng folded his arms and gave the other man an evaluating look. There was an overeagerness in Reeve's manner that came across as slightly childish; the prospect of a little skullduggery was clearly exciting him. Still, Tseng needed to get to Gongaga, no question about it, and Reeve was probably his best means of getting there. When Scarlet found out – as she would – Reeve's life would be made a misery; Tseng wondered if he realized this, and if he understood just how far-reaching the consequences might be.

Well, that was his problem. Tseng was in no position right now to turn down help when it was offered to him.

"Give me an hour," he said. "I'll need that long to be sure I've lost our friend over there. I'm going to go now. You should stay here and have a cup of coffee. Pick me up on the outskirts of the Sector Four slums. I'll be waiting for you by the row of warehouses."

"Warehouses," Reeve repeated with a smile and a thumbs-up, "Roger, Chief."

* * *

_Sorry for the long delay. Thank you for reading._


	46. Full Moon in Gongaga

**CHAPTER 46: FULL MOON IN GONGAGA  
**_In which Tseng and Cissnei try to clear the air, and Reeve is given some food for thought._

_

* * *

_

Tseng landed the hired helicopter in a clearing on the north side of Gongaga town, and he and Reeve walked together along the yellow dirt road until they came to the place where it forked off to the right. "I'll leave you here," said Reeve. "Take all the time you need. It's getting late," he glanced up at the sky, "But if we need to stay overnight, so be it. Call me when you know what you want to do."

He set off in the direction of the ruined reactor, where the army was currently focusing its investigations. No stone would have been left unturned there. Tseng continued on towards the town… Though in the years that had passed since the explosion, Gongaga had become a town in memory only. Nearly a thousand people had died in that incident. A mass exodus of the survivors had followed, and was still going on, as people moved away from their bad memories and their lost livelihoods to find new lives in the cities of the east. The Gongaga where Knox and Zack had grown up, thriving market town, unofficial district capital, was history; it had shrunk to a village, where those who remained did so because they were too old to leave, or had graves to tend, or could imagine no other life but tilling this soil.

He spotted Cissnei waiting for him by the graveyard gate. She was dressed like one of the locals – baggy hemp trousers, short cotton jacket, a brightly-coloured scarf tied like a sash around her waist - but he recognized her from a long way off by her shining hair. Seeing him, she came forward smiling, offering her hand in greeting. Outwardly she didn't seem to have aged a day.

Yet she was different. The elusive, restless expression that he remembered so well was gone from her golden eyes. _She's more at ease_, was his first thought. More assured. Or maybe less afraid? In the old days she had seemed fearless to him, a creature of steely determination, but he saw now that he had been wrong about her. She must have been living on her nerves all those years.

The worst things she could imagine, the things she feared the most, had befallen her, and she had survived. Her handshake was firm, and her face, when she smiled, was as beautiful as ever. _More beautiful_, he thought. This woman knew her own strength.

Tseng had nursed his anger against her for so long that it had become a habit, but seeing her now, he realized it had long ago lost whatever point it had once had. It wasn't so much that he let it go, as that he acknowledged it was gone. Keeping hold of her hand, he said, "It's good to see you, Cissnei."

Her smile deepened. Taking a step forward, she stood on tip-toe to brush his cheek with a kiss. "You too, Boss. Love the hair. It suits you."

"Are you in disguise?" he asked.

She laughed. "That suit's way too hot for this climate. I do have one – I was wearing it yesterday when I saw Zack – but security's been pouring in here ever since, and I thought it would be smarter to keep a low profile. Shall we sit down?"

She led him through the graveyard to a stone bench set right against the side of the cliff. Overhead the sun was tipping from afternoon to evening, stretching out the shadows of the tombstones across the grass. Here and there bunches of flowers, some fresh, some wilting, lay upon the grave-mounds.

"First things first," she said, putting her hand into her trouser pocket. "I've got something for you." Pulling it out, she opened her fingers to show him a sphere of materia unstable in hue: one moment it was pale pink, the next pale green, then pale gold, then blushing pink again. At its heart was a triangle of light.

She laughed at his astonishment. "I don't think I've ever heard you gasp out loud before. Well, go on, take it."

He held it carefully in the palm of his hand, unable to take his eyes off it. "Do you have any idea what this is? We've been looking everywhere for it. Where did you get it? Did Zack give it to you?"

"No," she said, "It was Lazard."

Tseng's head jerked up. "Lazard?"

"Well, sort of."

"He's alive?"

"Well," she said again, "Sort of. I don't know how or why he let it happen to him, but he's become one of Hollander's freaks. It's like he started turning into Angeal and got stuck halfway through. He has the wing and the white hair, everything. I've been seeing something I _thought_ was one of those monster clones flying around here, on and off, for the last couple of months, but it was him all along. He's been hanging round waiting for Zack. Yesterday, just before Zack showed up, he came to talk to me. That's when I realized who he was."

Was this the explanation for the Angeal sightings? "So did Lazard - come to you to give you this?" Tseng asked her.

She nodded. "And to warn me that Zack was coming. And also… " she turned her head to meet Tseng's eyes, "To apologise."

_How about that, then? _her tone challenged him. _Bet you weren't expecting that, were you? No, me neither._

He made no comment, but the question in his mind must have showed in his eyes, because she added, "I told him I was sorry, too."

_We can all say we're sorry_, thought Tseng. _It doesn't change a thing. _"What did he say about this materia?" he asked her. "Do you know where he found it? How did he know we wanted it?"

"He saw the Chief – "

"What? Where? When?"

"Last December, outside Nibelheim – "

"Lazard was in Nibelheim?"

"Keep your hair on, Boss. The story's a little complicated, so just listen. Zack told me Angeal was the one who helped spring him from the lab, but he was wrong. It was Lazard. After Zack busted out, Lazard followed him at a distance – kind of keeping an eye on him – until I gave him the keys to the bike – "

"You mean when he overpowered you and took them."

"Yes," she smiled, "Of course I do. Silly me. Why would you send one of your own Turks to aid and abet two pieces of company property in their escape from Shinra? You would never do a thing like that. Because you're not a devious bastard."

She paused.

"That totally fucked my head over," she added in exactly the same casual tone. "Just in case you were wondering."

Tseng had no intention of apologizing. "It was the only way."

"You could at least have told me he was alive," she said with feeling.

"It had to look real."

"But what if you'd been wrong? What if I'd tried to capture him? What if he'd killed me?"

"Then I would have been wrong," he replied, a little impatiently. "But I wasn't. You did a good job there, Cissnei. You saved his life. Hopefully, we can continue to do so. But he is not my only concern, so now, please, go on about Lazard. After Zack took the bike keys, what happened?"

"Lazard spotted the Chief going into the mountains and followed him. That place must have been like a bloody train station, with everyone coming and going…. Anyway, they talked. Long talk, apparently. God only knows what _that_ conversation must have been like. The Chief asked Lazard if he could keep an eye out for this materia. And after Lazard found it – "

"Where did he find it?"

"Somewhere round here. He wasn't specific."

"Why didn't he take it to Commander Veld?"

"He said the Chief's being tracked by Fuhito's Ravens. He didn't think it would be safe. And obviously he couldn't come into Midgar to give it to you. So he just hung on to it, until he decided to show himself to me yesterday. He also gave me Director Tuesti's number. He said we could trust him."

Tseng's fingers closed round the materia. He ran his other hand over his hair.

"I don't understand why he would do this, Cissnei. Why would Lazard help us?"

"Remember the 'dark shadows of Shinra'? I think he's trying to dispel them."

"By flying round the world looking for people to rescue and good deeds that need doing?" That didn't sound much like the Lazard Deusericus Tseng remembered.

His cynical tone earned him a disapproving look. "Lazard's dying," she pointed out. "He hasn't got much time left. What would you do?"

_Fight_, thought Tseng. _And take my enemies with me._

.

The sky purpled and turned black and the stars came out while the two Turks sat side by side on the stone bench, Tseng listening as Cissnei recounted the events of the previous day: the arrival of Zack; her meeting him at the gates of the village to stop him walking straight into the arms of security; his pursuit of what he thought was Angeal up the hillside to the top of the cliff; his confrontation with Genesis; the fight in the ruined reactor, Hollander's death, and Genesis's flight eastwards.

"Lazard went after him," she said. "Zack set off in the same direction on the bike, but he can't travel at the same speed. And he's still dragging that sick guy along. That's so typical of him. Anyone else would have ditched the deadweight long ago."

"Where are they headed?"

"My guess is Banora. Genesis is obviously going there on a regular basis. He left blue apples cores all over the place. I've picked up all the ones I could find; I just hope I haven't missed any."

"Well done," said Tseng. "We don't want the army cluing in. So, Zack's driving to the coast, you think?"

"Got to be. He'll try to take the island ferry from the Armory peninsula. There's no other way, unless he backtracks all the way to Costa."

Tseng considered the logistics. From here to the ferry port would have taken Zack at least a day, and the ferry only sailed three times a week; Zack would be held up there for another twenty-four hours minimum, waiting to embark. There was still time to catch him up.

"I want you to find Zack and follow him," Tseng told Cissnei. "Do what you can to keep the army off his tail, but don't let yourself be seen. And see if you can find out where Lazard got this materia."

"Yes, sir."

"The recapture of Genesis is an S-level priority mission. He's all that's left of the Jenova project, and the company would like him back. Alive. I want our department to be the ones who bring him in. It would make us look good, and it'd take some of the heat off us, at least for a while. You need to make sure Zack doesn't kill him. Understood?"

"Understood. But I don't think Zack wants to kill him."

"Then what does he want?"

"Answers, I think."

Tseng's phone rang. It was Reeve, calling to let him know that he was now at the inn and had ordered some food; he'd had an inkling they wouldn't be leaving any time soon. "How's it going?" he asked, and Tseng answered succinctly, "Making progress. Enjoy your dinner, Director," before hanging up.

"Have we got time to go for a walk?" Cissnei asked him. "There's something I'd like to show you."

.

They walked back along the road that led out of the village, and then took a path that wound up into the steep hills. The air was warm and humid against Tseng's skin, but not unpleasantly so. A big yellow moon sat low on the horizon, shedding a light that was almost as bright as day. Every blade of grass, every petal of the night-flowering trees seemed to vibrate with the buzzing of insects. As they climbed, a rocky gorge opened out on their right, its depths lost in shadows. Cataracts poured from the mouths of caves, the water turned to mercury by the moonlight.

_Aerith would have loved it here,_ thought Tseng.

Suddenly something large and feathered came swooping up from the gorge, causing them both to startle. It flew over Tseng's head and disappeared into the trees on the top of the cliff, cawing loudly. Cissnei laughed at the fright it had given them, and after a moment, Tseng coughed a laugh too.

They came to a noisy waterfall. Tseng had to sit down and take off his brogues in order to ford its stream. Cissnei's cloth sandals could stand a soaking, but she rolled up her trousers. Tseng did likewise. At the sight of his bare shins, she giggled, "Going for a paddle, Boss?"

Eventually they reached what was obviously the destination she'd had in mind: the end of the road. It ran on to the edge of the cliff, then fell away abruptly in a three hundred foot drop; Tseng wondered if a part of the cliff face had been blown off by the reactor explosion. To his right were a couple of derelict mud-brick huts, their doorways and windows webbed with acid-yellow hazard tape.

"Look at that," said Cissnei, pointing at the view.

The whole town lay spread out below them, its pale paths winding through shadows, the tin roof-shingles of its beehive huts burnished by the moon's soft light. Wisps of smoke floated upwards from the chimneys. Through a gap in the hills a flat plain could be seen stretching away to the south, and jutting up in the middle of it, like a wound, like a fracture, were the jagged black remains of the reactor.

"This is where Zack talked to Genesis," she told Tseng. "I tailed him here. After they went back down to the reactor I stayed up here and watched through my binoculars. I wish I could have got closer, but it was the best I could do with those clones prowling about. Fuck, there's one I missed," she added, stooping to pluck a blue apple from the grass. She held it out to him. "Hungry?"

"No, thanks."

She bit into it. "Look," she said through her mouthful, pointing down. "See that big cottage, with the square chimney and the lean-to round the back? Right down at the bottom of the village. That's Zack's house."

It looked substantial. By Gongagan standards, the Fair family was prosperous. Rich enough to afford the cost of a one-way ticket to Shinra for their pride and joy. "Did the Commander really think they were in danger from Genesis?" he wondered aloud.

Cissnei shrugged. "I had my orders."

"Do they know that Zack's alive?"

She hesitated, then nodded. "They're really good people, Tseng; they're just like I always imagined they'd be. And they were kind to me, even when I had nothing to give them but bad news. He's their only child. I had to tell them."

"What, exactly, did you say?"

"I blamed AVALANCHE," she answered promptly. "Terrorists took him prisoner. Held him for four years. He escaped. Now he's on a covert mission no one can talk about. That's what I told them."

And they would have believed her. She'd lost none of her facility for lies. Those big eyes were so convincing. Tseng looked again at the cottage far below. "So is that where you live now? With them?"

"No. But they keep asking me. I've never – well, all I've ever told them is that Zack and I used to work together. After we heard Zack was dead, his mother… she sort of took me under her wing. Adopted me. She'd tell me her stories about when he was a kid and I'd tell her my stories about his life in Midgar. She never gets tired of talking about him. His dad doesn't say much, but he likes to listen. Then when the money stopped coming, after the Commander disappeared, they kept me fed and found me work. Thanks for putting me back on the payroll, by the way," she added with a quick smile. "And then, there was the accident. That brought everyone closer. We all pulled together. So – yeah, you could say I'm practically one of the family now. Zack's mum's worried that with his chequered past he's never going to be able to find a nice Gongagan girl to settle down with. I think she's hoping I'll end up marrying her prodigal son just to keep things simple." Cissnei delivered the last lines breezily – too breezily. They sounded like a speech that had been rehearsed to death, and her smile did not rise as far as her eyes.

_Of all the many punishments Veld devised for us_, thought Tseng as he studied her, _this, surely, was the cruellest. _

Or maybe the wisest; maybe it was what she'd needed.

It had been in his mind to ask, _do you still love him?_ but the question suddenly seemed inconsequential. Instead, he said, "I'm not sure we can save him, Cissnei. Our own enemies are breathing down our necks."

"I know. The sharks are circling. But at least we can try. "

Turning away, she walked over to the nearest derelict hut and sat down on the concrete step, hugging her knees to her chest. "It's such a beautiful night," she said. "I come here a lot. I like to sit here and think. You can get a lot of thinking done in a place like this."

"I imagine there isn't much else to do."

She made a soft little noise, not quite a laugh, acknowledging the truth of his observation. "Come on, sit down for a minute. You don't get views like this in Midgar."

He sat, folding his arms across his jackknifed knees. It was, he agreed, a peaceful scene, a splendid view, but he would have thought Cissnei had had her fill of it after five years in this posting. They couldn't sit here all night; they had work to do. Yet she appeared to want to linger. She had laid her cheek against her arm, and was gazing across at the moon with dreamy eyes.

"Boss," she said slowly, "Do you keep count of the people you've killed?"

It wasn't the first time he'd been asked this question, though no one had asked it for many years now. "Not any more," he told her. "What about you?"

"Recently I've been trying to. But I can't arrive at an exact number. I can't actually remember. Don't you think that's worse?"

"Worse than what?"

"Than keeping score. They're not even a number to me. I forgot them. They didn't matter."

The topic was one Tseng no longer took much interest in, and the fact that Cissnei had chosen to raise it suggested to him that she had, perhaps, been away from the office too long. "If they hadn't mattered," he said dismissively, "Then they wouldn't have come to our attention. But in another sense you're right: who they were makes no difference. Our concern was only with what they did."

"Do we matter?" she wondered.

His first thought was to say _No. We are utilitarian, expendable._

Then he thought of Rufus and his answer changed to _Yes. But - _

Then he thought: _in this whole world there are only two people who really matter: Rufus and Aerith. They alone are irreplaceable. _

"Is the exact number so important?" he asked her. "One or two more or less…They weren't random victims, Cissnei. They weren't innocent, not – "

_Not like the people of Nibelheim and Corel_, he almost said. But he caught himself in time, swallowed that thought, and went on, "They knew the rules we play by, they knew what the stakes are, and they chose to come to our table. They would have killed us if they could. And if we'd been the ones who died… _When_ we die, there will be no shortage of people waiting to tell the world we got what was coming to us. I see nothing to be gained from keeping a running score. If there's going to be a reckoning, it must come at the end."

"And do you think there will be?"

"A calling to account?"

"When we die, do you think we'll have to answer for what we did?"

"I think this life is all there is," he told her.

Cissnei exhaled a long breath – not a sigh, more of a letting go – and closed her eyes. The silence between them grew deeper. Her breathing was so soft, he wondered if she was falling asleep.

"We need to get going," he reminded her.

Without opening her eyes, she asked him, "How bad is it in the office now?"

"It's difficult. We work around it."

"But everyone's… coping?"

"It's what we do."

"Everyone's, you know, OK?"

"We're all still alive."

"Except Mozo."

Again, silence fell.

_She's been gone so long, _thought Tseng. _Can she come back? Is it possible to go back?_

Lifting her head, she fixed him with a steady look and said, "C'mon, Boss. You know who I'm asking about."

So she'd worked herself up to it at last. The subject had been hanging in the air between them all evening, but every time they'd come anywhere near it she'd shied away. Even now she couldn't quite approach it head-on. Tseng wondered how long it would take her to utter his name.

"He's all right," he replied. "He's fine."

Cissnei laid her head back down and closed her eyes. "I knew he would be."

She sounded very sure of herself. Tseng felt a spark of anger, surprising in its intensity. It seemed he hadn't completely forgiven her, after all. "Did you?"

"I knew he wasn't serious about me. Hah," she laughed; it sounded forced, insincere. "As if. When was he ever serious about anything?"

"You'd be surprised. He's changed, in some ways."

"Settled down, huh?"

Was this really the line she was planning to take, denying the reality of what she'd done? If she wasn't prepared to be truthful, then why should he give her a straight answer?

"You could say so," he replied.

Once more she lapsed into silence. He could almost hear the busy fingers of her mind riffling through its bag of tricks, looking for a way to coax him into telling her what she wanted to know.

It would have felt like a betrayal of trust to tell her anything.

"He just needed to get me out of his system," she said, as if she believed it was true; as if she was hoping Tseng could confirm it.

Tseng said nothing.

Cissnei sighed and sat up. "Rude wouldn't talk to me when I saw him in Nibelheim."

"Rude doesn't say much to anyone if he can help it."

"He wouldn't even look at me, Tseng."

_Enough_, he thought. Getting to his feet, he turned to look down at her. "What do you want from me? You know what you did. You know that it went beyond the two of you. You were one of us."

"But he was deluding himself! He was never in love with me. He was just playing a game, and he got so caught up in it he started thinking it was real. It wasn't _real_, Tseng. He forgot that. I didn't. I never let myself forget – " She broke off abruptly, biting her lip.

Tseng wasn't about to let her get away with a half-truth, not now, just when she was beginning to be honest. "Forget _what_?" he insisted. "Explain yourself."

Her face hardened. "I need to spell it out? C'mon, Boss, let's face facts here. I'm not exactly the kind of chick guys take home to meet their mothers. Poor Mrs. Fair! – she'd have a heart attack if she knew. But I'm under no illusions. I know the effect I have on men; I could write the training manual on how to get a man into bed. I mean, it's my _job_, isn't it? I'd be a pretty sorry excuse for a Turk if I didn't know how to nail my mark. But when it comes to keeping a man…" Cissnei shook her head. "That's a whole different story. No one ever taught me how to do that, and I just can't seem to get a handle on it. I've never been able to hold on to a good one. Zack got tired of me pretty quickly… And Reno would've got tired of me too, once the novelty had worn off. All I did was save him the trouble of having to tell me to my face what a fucking big mistake he'd made when he said he loved me."

The words she spoke were at odds with her voice, which was flattened, detached – as if she were delivering a verbal mission report. And she'd turned her face away from him; he was unable to read her expression. Not that Cissnei had ever been easy to read. He had got her wrong many times before.

What was she hoping from him now? Confirmation? _Yes, you're right. Of course Reno never loved you. Good call there, Cissnei._

Only, she was wrong.

Should he tell her so? If he told her, what would happen? Would she believe him? Would it change anything? Or would it be salt in her wounds? And what purpose would it serve? He hadn't flown all the way down here in order to hold an autopsy on an ill-fated, one-sided love affair that had died and been buried years ago. It should never have happened. End of story. Let it lie.

Yet such things did happen. Without planning, without warning, they just happened.

Caught in a moment of weakness by a flash of brilliance, a man could be so blinded that his fall from grace would look to him like a falling into the light, into a secret place belonging to the two of them alone, where no one else could enter, and no one had to get hurt.

And then gradually, gradually, your eyes got used to the light and you looked around and you saw that it went beyond just the two of you: everyone else was in there with you, watching you, needing you, holding on to you, and you were dragging them all down with you, whether you wanted to or not.

How would it help her to know that? How would it help him to tell?

How would such a conversation go?

Cissnei, we've known each other a long time. Can we be truthful with each other? Can I tell you something?

_What is it, Tseng?_

He did love you.

_Oh really? What would you know about it?_

According to Rufus, very little. He says I'm no good at reading feelings. _Does he? Sounds like he knows you pretty well. You always did have a fucking ice-cube for a heart._

Yes, that's just the kind of thing you'd say.

_ Well - I never told you this, Tseng, but since we're being truthful… I blamed you. Yes, I did. I lost Zack because of you. You could have stopped them seeing each other. But you didn't even try. You __encouraged__ them. How cold-blooded is that? What kind of man stands by with his arms folded and smiles while another man walks off with the girl he loves? _

I'm aware that's what you all think. But you don't understand. None of you has ever understood. Aerith could never have loved me.

_That's not what Zack thought. It was doing his head in. That's why I had to tell him. _

I see you've managed to justify your actions to yourself, at least.

_You don't have any idea how jealous he was of you, do you? It really got to him the way you were always hanging around Aerith. He couldn't understand why she didn't tell you to get lost. She was supposed to be __his__ girlfriend. And of course she couldn't simply tell him the truth, oh no. She had to try and pull the wool over his eyes with those little white lies that didn't quite add up. And then you, with your 'oh if she won't tell you, I won't' mystery act – It drove him fucking crazy!_

You wouldn't be saying these things if this was a real conversation.

_Ah, but you like hearing them, don't you? Admit it._

Yes, even now, there's a part of me that wants to hear them. The worst part.

_The worst part? Are you serious? The part of you that loved her is the worst part?_

No. The worst part of me is the need to be loved in return. That's what I've had to struggle against. You've all assumed that because I loved her I must have wanted her to love me back. Can't you see that that is the very last thing I would have wished on her? Do you really think that's what I wanted for Aerith, to be the kind of woman who could love a man like me?

My job was to protect her. Not to make her love me. I break things, Cissnei. That's my profession. Solid things; intangible things. Opposition. Dreams. People. I wanted Aerith, at least, to be safe from me. And Zack did that for her. Whenever she looks at me now, she can't help but compare.

She sees what I am, now. She's beginning to understand now. She's starting to hate me. And I'm glad. It's liberating.

_Well, you paint it as all very noble and grand and self-sacrificing, flexing your moral fibre. What would Rufus call it? Vanity. Do you actually believe a word of what you just said? Isn't there a much simpler explanation? You've let go of her because you've found someone else to love you. Seems like you're not worried about breaking __him_.

He's unbreakable –

_ I bet he thinks he is. _

It's not a question of thinking, Cissnei. It's what he has to be, and I must make him be it.

We became a ship without a captain when Commander Veld left us. I've tried to fill his shoes, but I can't. I know my limitations. I'm a natural second-in-command, a lieutenant – I need someone to give _me_ purpose, so that I can lead the others. Rufus _has_ to be that man for us. There's no one else. And he has the mind for it. The _knack_. Rufus has a vision for Shinra, Cissnei. Maybe it's not the promised land, but that was never anything more than a pipe dream anyway. Rufus has a vision for a viable future. With our help, he could pull this company out of its self-destructive spiral and make our jobs mean something more important than ourselves again.

You were here when the reactor exploded, Cissnei. It's been three years since then. Not much recovery time, three years. If I walked out there now and put my hand to the earth, what would I feel? I'd rather not try it. Once was enough – and I find I'm sufficiently like most men that I'd willingly trade certainty in favour of hope. Though I think the forest has grown a little closer to the ruins since the last time I was in Gongaga. Wouldn't you agree, Cissnei?

You've spent so many hours up here, looking at this shrunken town, and at those broken shards of Shinra on the plain out there. They've rejected what we can offer. They've chosen to go backwards, to live simply. As a lifestyle, it has a certain appeal. But most people would refuse to settle for so little. Many of their own survivors refused; that's why they've left this town, moved on. You've been here; you've watched Gongaga empty. The world doesn't want to live like this, Cissnei.

AVALANCHE never claimed responsibility and we found no evidence to pin it on them, so I suppose we must accept it was an accident. But I don't believe it. Kill or cure: that's the AVALANCHE way. It doesn't have to be ours. There's got to be some better way out of this mess than blowing up reactors and returning to the dark ages. Rufus has so many ideas…

The human experiments are going to end. He's promised me that. No more Zacks. No more Angeals. No more Nibeheims and Corels. And no more Hojo. Oh God, Cissnei, you cannot know how much I _long_ for the order to put a bullet through that man's skull.

We're all disenchanted with Shinra. Mink and some of the others are becoming quite outspoken about it. If I am to persuade them to pull together and put their faith in the Vice-President - to bury the past and throw their weight behind the future he offers – I can only do it if they believe I'm acting in the best interests of the company, and that my faith in Rufus is based on my logical assessment of the situation, my objective judgement of his abilities, not wishful thinking or vain hope, not… love.

I've screwed up, Cissnei. So badly.

'Kill them all,' he said, 'but not Tseng.'

If only he hadn't -

He tried to overthrow the company. He tried to kill them. Of _course_ he was young and of course he was callow and ignorant and playing games with people's lives because he didn't know any better – who was he going to learn that from? His _father_? And of course they exacted vengeance – they're _Turks_ – and of course they've forgiven him, if only barely; he's going be their President one day. In some ways he was a worthy adversary, and they respect him for that. They're impressed by his intelligence, and they admire his nerve. But they'll never love him, Cissnei, the way we all loved Veld. They'll never forget. And they'll think I have.

I'm sure it won't surprise you to learn that Reno already suspects something. Whenever I'm in the same room with him now I feel like I'm holding a live grenade. He doesn't know who it is, not yet, but you remember how he is: he's not going to give up until he gets to the bottom of it, so unless I do something quickly, he'll work it out. And that will be one more thing broken.

There isn't much left holding the department together aside from our determination to _stay_ together, to watch each other's backs, for the Commander's sake. And their faith in me. They believe in me because Veld taught them to, and I've tried not to let them down. But if Reno finds out and tells the others, then it's all over for us. They won't be able to trust me to make their choices for them any more. We'll come unglued, and our enemies will pick us off one by one. And then Rufus will lose, and his vision will fail, because he can't win this war on his own.

If the Old Man ever finds out, I'm dead.

Dead, and useless to him.

As if he didn't already hate his father enough.

I don't want to be his weakness, though he is mine.

It was always impossible. I knew that from the start. When he told me he loved me, I knew that the right thing to do was to get up and walk out. But I…

No. There are no excuses. I'm ten years older than he is, and he was entrusted to my care. The blame is mine. Yet I don't think I've been entirely bad for him. I've tried to instill some of the Commander's values in him. And how can it ever be harmful to know that you have been loved?

I'm no romantic, and I try not to deceive myself. Reno's probably right. What Rufus feels for me now, or thinks he feels, won't outlast his captivity. But he believesit's real, that's the thing. He's so _young_, Cissnei. He believes the way he feels right now is the way he's going to feel for the rest of his life. And he's so arrogant, so convinced that he's right – about everything. It's going to come as a huge shock to him the day he wakes up and realizes that what he felt for me has gone, that it's all over.

Yet there are times when he says things that make me think he knows, if only subconsciously, that it can't go last much longer.

I wish I could let it die its natural death. That would be easiest – for him, I mean. To let him be the one who decides when it's over. But there's no time. I was lucky to survive the last assassination attempt. If anything happens to me, the burden's going to fall onto Reno's shoulders. Knox doesn't want it; Roz can't make the hard decisions, and Rude isn't a leader. I doubt Reno wants it either, but he'll do it if he has to. He'll make a good job of it, too: he'll hold them together and keep them alive. But if he's going to lead them in the right direction, he's got to be willing to listen to Rufus, and Rufus has got to be able to trust him. My job is to make sure that happens.

So I must end it. 'Break it off' - that's the phrase. Break _up_. Take apart; disassemble; fall to pieces. With my experience, you'd think I'd find it easy, and to tell you the truth, it's never been difficult before. But I'm lost with this one, Cissnei. My hands have grown clumsy; my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. My body's refusing to cooperate. All the more reason, you might say, to get it over and done with quickly. Just _do_ it. And I know you're right. But _how_?

How can I break this one thing, while keeping everything else intact?

Help me out here, Cissnei. You must have learned something all the years you've lived in this godforsaken town, all the hours you've spent on this clifftop looking through the moonlight, trying to make sense of your mistakes. Tell me, how do I do it without making things worse? How does one kill love cleanly? Or don't you know the answer to that either?

.

Of course Tseng did not utter this question aloud. He didn't say any of this to her, up there on the hillside overlooking Gongaga, though such thoughts were never far from his mind. They had urgent business to attend to, and time was ticking by. He sent her to collect her things while he fetched Director Tuesti from the inn; they met up at the helicopter and set off at once, flying north east. It was now nearly midnight. As they flew, Cissnei briefed Reeve on the Lazard situation. Reeve reacted with all the shock and horror one would expect from such a man.

When they landed, in a field at the top of the sea cliffs about four miles from the port, Reeve waited in the helicopter while Tseng got out to have a final word with Cissnei.

"Can I ask you something?" she said. "Back in Gongaga, on the hill, you said I _was_ one of us. Was that a slip of the tongue, or did you mean it? Am I in the past tense now?"

He looked at her standing very straight in front of him, chin pulled in, arms tight to her sides, and a vivid memory came to him of seeing her standing just like that once, years ago, in the hallway outside the surveillance room, waiting for her punishment.

"You're still working for Shinra, aren't you?" he said. Then it occurred to him that she might not find those words sufficiently reassuring, so he added, "You've done a good job in this posting. The Commander would be proud of you."

Her fingers clutched his sleeve. "When can I come home?"

"I can't say. For now, you're more use to me out here. Oh, and one more thing. If you should fall into the army's hands, then you are to answer, fully and truthfully, any questions you may be asked pertaining to Zack and Genesis." Cissnei opened her mouth to protest, but with a raised hand he forestalled her. "However we may personally feel about certain aspects of company policy, we are all still, technically speaking, on the same side, and you are not to give the military reason to suppose that the Turks are uncooperative. That's an order, Cissnei. I want to save Zack's life if we can, but not at _any_ price."

Back in the air he set their course for Midgar. Reeve, preoccupied with thoughts of Lazard, had sunk into a depressed silence, which he broke only once to wonder aloud, "Can't anyone help him?"

"Who would you suggest?" Tseng replied in his shadowy voice. "Hojo?"

There was nothing more to say. Reeve withdrew into his own reflections. Tseng let his mind wander back to Cissnei, replaying and rewriting their conversation on the clifftop, wondering what he might have said differently, and how she would have reacted if he had denied her version of the truth – _it was a game, he didn't love me – _and insisted on his own instead. And thus his thoughts ran from Cissnei to Aerith, and from Aerith to Rufus, and from Rufus to Reno, circling fruitlessly, seeking for a way out he knew did not exist.

* * *

They were passing over the Junon coast when Tseng's phone rang. The sound of it woke Reeve, who had been dozing slumped in the co-pilot's seat. He wriggled upright, rubbed his eyes, and looked out the window. Dawn was beginning to lighten the darkness to the east. Then he heard Tseng say:

"Calm down. You must insist they leave. On my authority. Don't let them touch anything. Take the sergeant's name and number. I'll be there in twenty minutes. Wait for me."

Someone, somewhere, was having a crisis. Tseng's words were supportive, reassuring – but the tone of voice in which he uttered them set the hairs on the nape of Reeve's neck standing on end. He'd never heard Tseng use that voice before. Those who had, he imagined with a little shiver, probably hadn't lived long. It was the same tone Veld had sometimes taken in Board meetings, where the mere sound of it, even when not directed at him, had always been enough to silence any objections Reeve might have been thinking of making; urban planners were not difficult to replace, after all. But he had thought the Wutaian a different proposition from his master. Tseng came across as such a good dog: neat, polite, well-trained. One easily forgot that he, too, had teeth.

The voice Tseng was using, so cold, so quiet, meant death; Reeve understood that. But whose death? In the darkness of the cockpit the Chief Turk's expression was unreadable, and Reeve thought it the better part of valour to ask no questions.

* * *

_Thank you, everyone, for reading; thank you, dear alerters, favouriters, reviewers, for letting me know that my efforts haven't been in vain._

_Given that this chapter features a ruined reactor and a devastated town, I feel it's timely that I dedicate it to the people of Japan, the land from whose imagination Final Fantasy originates. Nature has dealt them an appalling blow, but they have survived worse, and they will triumph over this latest disaster. if you feel able to, please help them in their recovery by making a kind donation to the Red Cross/Red Crescent relief effort. No matter how small, it will make a difference._


	47. A Sentimental Education

**A SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION  
**_**In which Tseng investigates a murder, Aviva learns Charlie's story, and Mink changes her mind about the Vice-President**_

* * *

While Tseng was coming in to land at Junon airport, Mink was making her way through the plate towards the bunker, feeling more sure, with every step she took, that she was going to fumble this job. She was completely the wrong person. Why, why had she put her hand up?

_Oh, that's right. Because nobody else would. _

When Skeeter had broken the shocked silence that hung over the briefing room table to say, "Veev – she's down with the V.P. Somebody has to tell her," every one of the hastily assembled Turks had instinctively looked away – at the floor, the walls, anywhere but into someone else's eyes. _Cowards_, thought Mink. Roz ought to be the one doing this, or Rude… either one of them was closer to Veev than Mink was. Reno would probably have volunteered if he'd been there, but he, Hunter and Cavour had already left, and so Mink had slammed to her feet and said, almost angrily, "Fine, I'll do it," and now – here she was.

The outer door slid open. She walked forward, pausing with her hand on the inner doorknob. From within she could hear the sounds of laughter.

_Just get it over with_, she told herself.

She eased the door open a half-inch, and looked inside. The Vice-President and the smallest of the Turks sat facing each other, each with a stack of playing cards in their right hand. The rest of the deck was piled messily face-up on the coffee table between them. Aviva was failing to hide an uncontrollable grin behind a face-palm, while Rufus, showing his teeth in a smile, said in that silky voice of his, "You're really sinking low, Veev. You slipped that jack to the top of your hand when I wasn't looking."

"You memorized the order of the cards?"

"Ah, so you admit it."

"I have to cheat, sir," she giggled. "You always win!"

"That is an absurd statement. Beggar-my-neighbour is entirely a game of chance. There's no skill involved. Except the skill of _lying_, and that's only when I play with _you, _you cheating vixen."

Mink had opened the door so quietly that they hadn't heard her come in, but when she shut it behind her with a firm _click_, they both looked up. "Oh, hullo," said Rufus.

"Thank goodness," said Aviva. "I'm being fleeced here. Is it that time already?"

"No. I – " Mink walked over to them. "There's something I have to tell you."

How should she begin? Should she stay standing? Sit down? She couldn't decide –

"What's wrong?" asked Rufus.

Mink tried to make the words come out. She couldn't do it.

Her inability to speak, the look in her eyes, said it for her.

"Oh my god," Aviva cried, the cards falling from her hands, "Not – "

"Tseng," said Rufus softly.

"It's Charlie," said Mink, finding her voice at last. "They got him, Veev. They've killed him. Charlie's dead."

* * *

He'd been dead for just over an hour. His PA, after being woken from her sleep by a phone message from an unidentified caller, had rushed up the town to his apartment and found the body. Almost immediately thereafter a squadron of Heidegger's men had burst in; neighbours who'd heard the gunshots had alerted Public Safety. She'd then called the department's head office and spoken to Rosalind, who had told her to call Tseng. By invoking the name of the Turk Director, she had managed to prevent the soldiers from moving the body or tampering too much with any of the evidence. Tseng ordered them out, but he knew the reprieve would be temporary; they'd be back as soon as they received the necessary authorization.

He asked the PA, "Tell me again what the caller said. Word for word."

She was shaking violently. "They just said to come to Charlie's flat, sir. They said he had a message for Shinra."

The two of them were standing in the sitting room of Charlie's apartment. His naked, discoloured body lay in an awkward heap on the floor, as clumsy in death as it had been debonair in life (_but that isn't Charlie,_ Tseng reminded himself, _that's nothing but a slab of meat). _The stiffening fingers of his right hand clutched a semi-automatic with - Tseng checked - an emptied magazine. Cause of death was loss of blood. Multiple stab wounds, disabling but not fatal, had been followed by a cut across his throat from ear to ear that had nearly removed his head. _Sword_, thought Tseng, _or possibly machete. _Sprays of blood, some still wet to the touch, streaked the walls and the ceiling. So much blood had soaked through the carpet that it had become glued to the floorboards underneath.

"Was the caller a man or a woman?" asked Tseng.

"Man, sir." She pushed her fist across her cheek, smearing tears.

The trail of blood led up the stairs to the bedroom, where the walls were pockmarked with bullet holes. One of Charlie's assailants lay dead here, killed by a gunshot wound to the chest. He was dressed like a member of the Engetsu – elaborate armour, ritual headgear – which made it look, at first glance, as if Wutai were behind this hit. Belated payback for Charlie's defection during the war? Tseng knelt down to remove the helmet, and found himself looking into the beaky face of a boy, maybe sixteen years old, spotty and fair-haired with bad, brown teeth, who could have been any one of ten thousand Midgar slumrats, but was definitely not from Wutai.

Tseng got up off the floor and turned his consideration to the bloody footprints criss-crossing Charlie's white carpet. One pair of bare feet; many shoes. "There were half a dozen of them, at least," he said. "They must have mobbed him while he was sleeping. And no sign of forced entrance. Someone must have let them in. Have you checked the security cameras?" he asked the PA.

"They were all disabled, sir, and the data removed," she replied.

Reeve, who had insisted on coming along, was still throwing up in the bathroom.

"These people were amateurs," said Tseng. "Look how they butchered him. They'll have slipped up somewhere. I'm going to search the house. Stay with him," he told the girl. "And call the mortuary. We're going to need an ambulance. I want to get his body out of here before those soldiers come back."

* * *

Humour, according to a book Rufus had once read, lay in being surprised by a discordance between one's expectations and reality – between what one believed was possible, and what was actually seen or heard. Thus, when Aviva laughed out loud at Mink's words, he understood, intellectually, why she did so.

"Hah! Charlie?" She was gasping for breath, one hand pressed under her ribcage. "Oh, no. No. Not Charlie. That's not true, Mink. That can't be."

* * *

It didn't take Tseng long to find what he was looking for. He had noticed when he came in that the security camera in the entryway was a dummy – a decoy. The intruders had disabled it, but they had failed to notice the real camera, no bigger than the top joint of Tseng's thumb, hidden inside the doorway's ornate light fitting. "Start up the computer for me," he called out to the PA. He took a flashdisk from his pocket, climbed onto the chair, inserted the disk into the camera's port and downloaded the files. On his way back to the sitting room he glanced, in passing, into the kitchen, and saw Reeve sitting at the counter with his tie loosened, his head buried in his hands.

Charlie's PA had covered the remains with a tablecloth. Tseng stepped past it and sat down at the terminal. He entered Charlie's various passwords, then inserted the disk. After a moment's loading time, the file began to run. He fast-forwarded it. There: Charlie (_last image of him alive, but don't think about that, do your job)_, coming in with a woman. She was slim, pretty, dark-haired, attractively made-up. Smiles flashed back and forth. They passed in front of the camera and were gone.

The doorbell rang. It was the ambulance men. The PA went to let them in.

Fast forward, three, four hours, and there the woman was again, in a dressing gown, standing on the same chair Tseng had used, expertly disabling the decoy camera.

Fast forward another three quarters of an hour, and there she was again, fully clothed, opening the door to admit six murderers in fancy dress before going out herself and closing the door behind her.

Tseng scrolled back until he found the best shot of her face. (_Lovely face. Lovely, pricey ladies: your downfall, Charlie. She'll be the death of you. Stop that now.) _He freeze-framed the image, cropped and enlarged it, turned on Charlie's printer, and began printing out copies of their target's photograph.

* * *

Mink held Aviva in her arms while the girl retched, sobbed, howled.

The boy – the Vice-President – didn't seem to know what to do with himself. He sat there staring at Aviva as if he'd never seen grief before. When she started tearing at her hair, he turned to Mink and demanded, "Can't you do something for her?"

"I am," Mink replied, grabbing Aviva's wrists and forcing them down.

"I meant put her to Sleep. Or give her a tranquilizer. There's some in the first aid kit."

"She has to go through this," Mink told him. "There are no short cuts."

From out of nowhere the little cat jumped up onto the arm of the sofa. It sat looking at Aviva for a few seconds, its animal eyes absolutely blank; then it stepped neatly onto the cushion and lay down close beside her, pressing its warm flank against Aviva's hip, purring loudly.

A light came on in Rufus' eyes. Mink would have been tempted to call it the dawn of understanding, but she didn't want to ascribe more significance to the moment than it deserved. It was, after all, possible that his initial failure to react had been due to his shock at the violence of Aviva's grief. At any rate, he now got up from his side of the table, came around to their sofa, sat down on its arm, and tentatively, almost shyly, let his hand come to rest on Aviva's shoulder.

* * *

There was a knock on the door of Charlie's apartment. The PA opened it to let in Hunter, Cavour, and Reno. Tseng handed them the photographs and said, "Find her."

The hunt lasted seven hours. They began by showing her picture round Charlie's favourite bars in Upper Junon. It turned out plenty of people knew her name, and someone had seen her very early that morning making her way down to the docks. At the harbour they were told by a ticket clerk that she'd boarded the dawn ferry to Costa del Sol. Using Tseng's hired chopper, they flew to Costa, where they learnt from the materia vendor that she'd hitched a lift with a couple of surfers who were driving down to Gold Saucer for the weekend. After that it was a simple matter of intercepting the surfers' camper van, extracting their screaming, weeping, struggling target, throwing her into the helicopter, taping her mouth shut, flying back to Junon, and handing her over to Tseng.

Half an hour later, she was dead, and they knew that the woman who had hired her was Commander Veld's daughter.

* * *

Mink realised she had fallen asleep on the sofa when she found herself forcing her eyelids open. The first thing she saw was Aviva, curled up in a little ball beside her. Deep in sleep, the girl's jaw moved fretfully, grinding her teeth. Her hands were white-knuckled fists. _Poor kid_, thought Mink, _she's really been through the mill_. And it would all have to be suffered again when she woke, and again, and again, for as long as her sorrow took to heal.

The Vice-President was nowhere to be seen. Mink wondered if he was working at the computer. She held her breath and listened. No soft tapping of keys came from the office area. His bedroom door was shut. Had he gone to bed? The clock on her PHS said four in the afternoon, but the hours were always odd down here. She couldn't remember him leaving the room, and wondered if he'd sat up for a while after the two of them had fallen asleep. What an unlikely image that brought to mind: Rufus Shinra watching over a pair of bereaved, slumbering Turks. A reversal of the natural order of things – and yet, for that very reason, rather an appealing mental picture, Mink decided. At the very least, it would have done him no harm.

Moving carefully, so as not to disturb the sleeper, Mink eased herself off the sofa and went into the kitchen to make some coffee. She had just filled the machine with water and was switching it on when a soft groan summoned her back to the sitting room. Aviva was trying to sit up. She seemed disoriented. Her lips were raw. Her eyes looked like bruises. "Oh Mink," she cried. "Charlie. Charlie."

Mink sat beside her and took her hand. "I know."

"When I woke up I thought it was just a bad dream."

"It feels like one, doesn't it?"

"You're so strong. How can you be so strong?"

"I'm older than you. I've been through this before. And I wasn't as close to him as you were." Offering comfort didn't come naturally to Mink, but she was giving it her best, putting all the gentleness she could muster into her words. She was startled when Aviva recoiled, eyes blazing. Had she said something wrong? What?

"Don't you _dare _lie to me!" Aviva's voice was raw. "Not _now_. I know all about the two of you. I _saw _you."

"What?" said Mink.

"Together. I saw you. Together."

"What? You think – Charlie and I – Oh, Veev, where did you get that idea?"

"I _saw_ you."

"Where?"

"In Loveless Avenue. The day we moved Mr Rufus down here. You were – well, you were – well, it was obvious that the two of you knew each other a _lot _better than either of you ever let on."

"And so you thought that Charlie and I…?" Mink leaned forward and gripped both the girl's hands. "I swear to you, Veev, nothing could be further from the truth."

"But you hid it. Why would you hide it?"

"Hid what?"

"That you know each other. You _do_ know each other, don't you? More than just as colleagues."

"But – it never arose. We hardly ever saw each other. We didn't _hide_ anything. The Chief knew. Tseng knows…"

Commander Veld was the one who'd put the pieces of the puzzle together for her. After she'd disclosed her own history to him, he'd seen at once where the Legend fitted in. The news had come as a shock to her. She'd never imagined their paths would cross again. _Small world_, she'd thought. Too close for comfort, sometimes. But as it turned out, they'd had little to do with each other, and anyway Charlie (Mink liked the new name; it became him) was someone who lived in the present, and Mink could appreciate that. Used-up names, used-up lives were good for nothing when the times changed; they were old clothes that you threw away and thought of no more. It was why she'd joined the Department in the first place. After a while, after she'd given it some thought, Mink decided she wasn't really surprised that he had ended up a Turk too.

"It all happened a long time ago, Veev." Mink could hear her voice rising involuntarily, warning Aviva to _back off; _she could feel herself pulling inwards, closing down.

Aviva was in no state to notice. "How long ago?" she demanded, yanking her hands free. "Was it before you were a Turk? How old were you?"

"Nineteen – "

"And how old was Charlie?"

"I don't know. In his twenties, I guess."

"Were you friends?"

"No," Mink told her firmly. "'Friends' is not the right word. I was never close to him. You know him much better than I ever did. You probably knew him the best of all of us."

"But that's just it. I don't." Aviva caught a shaky breath, and went on, "In one way I know him so well that I can _hear_ his voice inside my head, I can hear it _right now_, saying things that no one but him could say. But in another way I feel like I never really knew him at all. Charlie never told me anything about himself. I never knew what was really going in his mind. And I never understood why he went to so much trouble for me. Why was he so good to me? Was it because he felt guilty? Did he take pity on me because I was so pathetic? Was I his act of random kindness? I just don't know."

She looked up. The bewilderment in her face, the desperate need for things – _life _- to make sense, clutched at Mink's heart in a way she wasn't prepared for.

"There are so many things I wanted to ask him," Aviva went on, "and now I never will. He never even explained to me why the Chief kept him under arrest in Costa for all those years. Roz said it was because he deliberately let someone die when he was supposed to be rescuing them, but why would Charlie do a thing like that? It went against everything he believed in. He was the one who told me that you can't pick and choose, you have to do whatever it takes. But… Well, all I know is, he must have had a reason."

"He did," Mink admitted. Even to her own ears her voice sounded gruff: a reproach, a slap-down.

Aviva waited.

Mink already felt like she'd said too much. Like it had been choked out of her. Like she'd shifted a stone.

"If you really can't," said Aviva at last, looking down at her hands, which were trembling, "It's OK. I understand. I probably shouldn't have asked."

_Oh,_ _bloody hell, _thought Mink, w_hy does she have to be such a good kid? I've got no choice now. She deserves something. It doesn't have to be everything. Just what she needs to help her. The rest – doesn't matter any more. _

Taking a deep breath, Mink came to a decision. "Listen, Veev, I – I made coffee. It's nice and strong. Let me get you some. And then I'll see what I can tell you about Charlie."

.

There were many deliberate omissions in the story Mink recounted to Aviva, once they were sitting side by side with their coffee in their hands. She saw no point in burdening her listener with irrelevant details, details that no one but the Chief had ever been told. Aviva wasn't interested in Mink. Charlie, and Charlie alone, concerned her. Mere coincidence had caused Mink's path through life to cross with his; his story would have unfolded in exactly the same way whether she had been there to witness it or not. Nobody needed to know about Mink in order to understand Charlie.

She therefore left out the part about a dark-haired young girl, whose name was not yet Mink, who had Mink's height and rangy strength and all the beauty of her youth, but was otherwise not much like Mink at all. This girl had married too young and had a baby too soon, and before she was twenty she had thrown it all away by falling wildly in love with a charismatic rabble-rouser, a fiery-eyed young man who roamed from town to town stirring people up against the growing power of the Shinra corporation. Abandoning her child, her husband, family, friends, everything, this girl had run away with her lover to his hideout in the mountains and joined his band of idealists without ever really knowing exactly what they were fighting for or what she was supposed to believe in. She had believed in him; that was all the reason she needed.

Mink left most of this out. The remainder she summed up for Aviva by saying, "When I was young and stupid I was involved for a while with an anti-Shinra group. That's where I first met Charlie. Our leader had hired him to train us. He went by a different name then."

Though he was not yet, in those days, the Legend he would become, the girl whose name was not Mink had heard of him. He had a reputation for ruthlessness, and was said to care about one thing only: money. The Shinra Corporation had set a bounty on his head. Her lover and his friends spoke of this with pride. The mercenary was a man they greatly admired.

"I don't suppose he ever told you about his sister, did he?" Mink asked.

The look on Aviva's face was all the answer she needed.

"She was a lot younger than him," Mink went on, "Maybe ten, eleven. Funny little tough-talking kid with a freckly face, strutting around the place in sunglasses. She had her hair cut short and she always dressed in boy's clothes. Nicky, her name was. He called her Nick. It took me a month to realize she was a girl.

"The first time I saw that kid, I was outraged. How could he have brought a child to such a dangerous place? But later, when I understood the situation better, I realized he wouldn't have done it if he'd had any alternative. I got the impression she was all the family he had left. She was his helper, his apprentice. He treated her just the way he treats you. It was kind of… a nice thing to see, that unselfish side of him. I liked him better because of it. And I reckoned she was probably safer by his side than she would have been in some orphanage somewhere. So I ended up accepting her there, just like we all did."

In that year, the war against Wutai had reached a stalemate. Shinra's SOLDIER program was still under wraps, and Sephiroth had not yet made his bloody debut. The Company was looking weaker than at any time since the war began; in fact, many people were predicting that Wutai was going to win. The time had come, said the girl's lover, to act.

"Our plan was to occupy a construction site that had just been opened up in the next valley," Mink told Aviva. "The word was Shinra were building a materia processing plant there. They'd got as far as laying the foundations. We were going to blow everything up once we'd taken control of the site. We told ourselves Shinra would have to start taking us seriously then."

They were little more than children playing at being freedom-fighters, that girl, her lover, their friends. They knew less of war than Charlie's sister. None of them had set eyes on a battlefield. None of them had taken a human life. Almost none of them knew what a dead body looked like. For them, it was a big adventure.

"We were a fairly small group," Mink explained. "The numbers fluctuated, but it was never more than thirty. Some of the guys had a lot of money. They came from very privileged backgrounds, wealthy, powerful families here in Midgar. I mean _really_ well-connected families."

The thing these boys were most afraid of was that their parents would find them and make them go home.

"Our hideout was pretty remote. We hardly ever had visitors. But there was this one guy who was always coming and going. His name was Reiner. He and Charlie knew each other. I think he was the one who got Charlie the job with us, or else maybe Charlie hooked us up with him; I don't know how it worked. Anyway, Reiner was the source for all our weapons. Most of our stuff was Shinra knock-offs, black market. We thought that was a huge joke: Shinra hoisted by their own petard.

"Three days before we were due to launch our invasion of the building site, me and another girl were sent down to the town to pick up some supplies. While we were gone, our base was attacked. By _real_ soldiers. Professionals. My friends didn't stand a chance..."

The girl who was not yet Mink saw the smoke from far away. She parked their truck, got out, walked up the road to the top of the hill and looked down. When she saw what had been done to their camp, she died a little, and then a little more with every body she came across as she ran through the silent camp, calling her lover's name. The memory of what she did next was lost in limbo; it belonged neither to that girl, who was dead, nor to Mink, who had not yet come into being. At some point she found herself standing outside the girl's old front door. Inside the house, a child began to cry. The sound was like a jolt of electricity delivered straight to the muscle of her heart: it began to beat again, and the pain of this, though indescribable, was an affirmation of life. She started hammering on the door, punching it with her fists until her knuckles bled, calling on those inside to let her in. But the door had been slammed in her face, and it would not be re-opened. As far as the people on the other side were concerned, she would have done better to stay dead.

Eventually she washed up in Midgar. She no longer looked like the young mother who had abandoned her baby, or the lover whose gunshot romance had been ended by a soldier's bullet. Her black hair had fallen out and was growing back silver. Men, she discovered, were attracted by her unusual looks. She tried out various names. The one she stuck with longest was 'Kathy'. Kathy easily found work in security: Kathy was strong, and good with her fists; she knew how to shoot a gun and use materia, and she didn't care what she did as long as she got paid for it. Kathy could turn her hand to anything. Kathy got by.

After a year or so she started reading in the papers about Charlie's exploits in Wutai, and realized that he had survived. _Figures_, she thought.

"Charlie's sister too?" asked Aviva in a small voice.

"Yeah, she died, Veev. Charlie was the only one who got out alive."

"How?"

"I don't know. I wasn't there; I didn't see. And Charlie and me - he would never talk about it, and I knew better than to ask him. It was… too long ago."

"But if his sister was killed, that means – "

"He was taken by surprise, just like we all were," said Mink. "Charlie wasn't the one who betrayed us. I know that for sure."

Aviva sat very still for a little while, digesting this information. Mink crossed her arms and leaned back, waiting. She'd given the girl a lot to take in.

Finally, Aviva said, "So I was his substitute sister? Is that what you think?"

"No really, no. Look, Veev - if you don't know what went on in Charlie's head, then I certainly didn't, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't 'oh look, here's a funny kid, she can be my new sister,' type of thing. You can't just replace one person with another like that. Nicky was Nicky; you are you. All I'm saying is that everybody has their good side, and something about you brought Charlie's out in him. I guess it could have been because you reminded him in some way of her." Mink paused, reflecting. "Although you're really very different. So I don't know. Maybe he just liked you for yourself. That's not so impossible, is it?"

.

A little later, when Aviva, drained and listless, was lying on the sofa staring up at the ceiling, and Rufus still had not appeared, Mink's phone rang. She took it from her breast pocket, put it to her ear, and listened silently until the end, when she said, "Understood. Mink out," and clicked it shut.

"That was Roz," she told Aviva. "AVALANCHE were responsible. It's definite."

Aviva sighed.

"They got one of them, Veev."

"That won't bring him back though, will it?"

There were no more tears. For the time being, Aviva was all cried out. She sat up, running her hands through her cropped curls, and after a moment she got off the sofa and went into the bathroom. Mink heard the shower being turned on.

It seemed the Vice-President had been waiting for the all-clear, for he now emerged from his bedroom, wearing a black silk dressing gown tied loosely over his black silk pyjamas. "How is she?" he asked Mink. "Is she all right?"

"Not yet. But she will be."

"Was the Legend her lover?" There was a very faint note of incredulity in Rufus' voice, as if he recognized the unlikeliness of the suggestion, yet could think of no other way to account for the depth of Aviva's grief.

"No, sir. Her friend."

"I see." Rufus closed his eyes for a moment, pale lashes against paler skin. Mink wasn't sure if it was her imagination or the unforgiving harshness of the strip light or if he was, in truth, slowly losing his colour down here, but she thought he looked fragile today. Then again, maybe they all did.

"Tseng hasn't called you, has he?" Rufus asked her.

"Not yet, sir - "

Suddenly it hit her with the force of a small explosion: Rufus was still in the bunker.

The perfect opportunity to escape had been handed to him on a plate. While she and Aviva were dead to the world he could have taken their guns and key cards and walked out; he could have been back in the Shinra Building by now, back at his father's side.

But he was still here.

"He must have his hands full," said Rufus. "Is there any tea?"

"I'll put the kettle on, sir," she hastily offered.

"No. I'll do it. You don't need to mollycoddle me so much. I am perfectly capable of plugging in a kettle and turning it on."

"That's - good to know, sir."

Rufus raised an eyebrow, giving her a quizzical look that wasn't entirely displeased, and headed off towards the kitchen.

Mink's eyes followed him. _I didn't think to check_, she marvelled. _I took it for granted he'd be here. Me and Veev both. It never occurred to us to doubt. _

Halfway to the kitchen he slowed, stopped, swiveled from the waist to look back at her, as if he'd realized she was thinking about him. A little furrow creased the smooth skin between his brows; some thought seemed to be troubling him. He cleared his throat, and said, "The Legend wasn't someone I knew well – though I was aware of his reputation, of course. And he once did me a favour, although I was unable to appreciate it at the time. I know he was important to you, all of you. Tseng thought very highly of him. So I wanted to say… I'm sorry for your loss."

Plain words, uttered with conviction. _Thank you, _thought Mink, _for calling it our loss, and not the company's loss. _She became aware of hot tears gathering in her eyes, and was astonished; she'd felt nothing like this when Aviva was howling out her grief. Wiping a hand across her face, she replied, "I know you are, sir."

He gave her a smile that did not touch his sombre eyes, and turned away into the kitchen. Mink took a few deep breaths, pinched her cheeks to stem the imminent flow of tears, and was soon in command of herself again.

Several minutes later Aviva emerged from the bathroom, her damp hair tousled but her suit neatly buttoned, her tie set straight, her face washed clean. "I ought to be getting back to work," she said.

"There's no need, Veev."

"Yes, there _is_. I need to do _something_. I feel _useless_. He'd be so ashamed of me if I fell to pieces…"

"Have some tea first," said the Vice-President, coming between them with a steaming mug in either hand. He gave one to Mink, who took it without really wanting it, and held out the other to Aviva. She stared at it in surprise, and then at him, before gathering it into her hands with a soft, "Thanks, sir."

"I am trying to make myself useful, you see," he smiled. Then he left them, and went back to the kitchen.

Aviva's fingers tightened round the mug. It was very hot, but she didn't seem to feel it. "Was it _Shinra_ who attacked you_?"_ she asked in an urgent whisper.

Mink threw a look over her shoulder. The V.P. was definitely out of earshot. All the same, she kept her own voice down. "No."

"Then who?"

"The man who sold us our weapons. Reiner. But I didn't know that until some months after I'd come to Midgar – "

"You mean when we joined the Turks?"

"No. The _first_ time I came to Midgar, after… " Mink hesitated; then, gesturing for Aviva to come closer, took the girl by the wrist and pulled her down to sit on the sofa. Their knees almost touched. "Years ago I was working under the plate. One night I met this guy in a bar. Mercenary type, worked for Reiner. He got drunk and started going on about the Legend not being all that he was cracked up to be, and boasting how he and his mates had done a number on him once. So naturally I asked him what he was talking about. I got the whole story from him. After that I invited him back to my place and when he was sleeping I killed him with my bare hands. He was the first man I ever killed. I still have dreams about it."

"You did the right thing," Aviva assured her, with a fierce earnestness that almost made Mink smile.

"Thanks. It…felt right," she admitted. "I was surprised by how easy it was. Afterwards I had to clear out of town. Reiner's thugs were after my blood, but I wasn't in the mood to die. Not until I'd got my hands on Reiner."

"But what I don't get is why this Reiner guy turned on you all in the first place. You were his customers," Aviva pointed out. "What did he think he was going to get out of it?"

"Shinra's gratitude?" said Mink. "It's the only logical explanation. He was a notorious gun-runner. The company had put a price on his head. I think he was hoping to smooth things over by handing them Charlie's head instead. I suppose he thought that if he could eliminate an annoying group of troublemakers at the same time, the President would give him a cigar. But it backfired on him. A couple of those annoying troublemakers were children of the Old Man's friends. Shinra doubled the price on his head. He took refuge in Wutai. I think he had some plastic surgery to make himself unrecognizable. I know he spent some time with Charlie. Charlie still thought, at that point, that Shinra was to blame – "

"How can you be so sure we weren't?" said Rufus from behind them. Both women startled and turned around. He was leaning against the wall, tea-mug cupped in his hands, and gave them a look that said _why so surprised? _ "It's possible, isn't it, that my father played Reiner false? Made him a promise, and then broke it? More than possible, I would say. Probable."

He came away from the wall, walked around them and took a seat opposite, arms outstretched along the back of the sofa, legs crossed at the knee. Mink wondered just how much he had overheard before he decided to make his presence known.

"Why are you saying this?" she demanded.

"Because I'd prefer you to consider it now, rather than suddenly see the light at some time more inconvenient for all of us."

"I thought of nothing else for _years_." She bit the words out. "Of course the possibility crossed my mind. But Commander Veld assured me – "

"The man who gave his own daughter to Hojo?"

Mink hissed through her teeth, and Aviva cried out reproachfully, "Sir! – "

"Nothing good comes of brushing these things under the carpet," Rufus replied, unperturbed.

"What do you know about it?" Mink snapped at him. "You were just a kid."

"I think we all know how my father operates."

"But Charlie _trusted_ the Chief," Aviva protested.

"That's right," said Mink, throwing her a grateful look. "Charlie would never have been so loyal to Shinra if he'd had even the smallest suspicion that the company was responsible for his sister's death."

"And yet he spent three years in Costa del Sol, refusing all Veld's pleas to come back to work," Rufus reminded them.

"But that was because the Chief lied to him about Reiner – " Mink bit her lip, chagrined at her own carelessness.

"Ah. Now we come to it," said Rufus. He re-crossed his legs and settled himself more comfortably. The two women watched him, saying nothing. He went on, "According to your departmental records, the Legend was put under house arrest after failing to rescue this man Reiner from a kidnapping. The order to carry out the rescue came directly from the President. It was Veld who chose the Legend for the mission. I therefore deduce, from what you say, that Veld did not disclose to the Legend the true identity of the man he was supposed be saving. Am I right?"

"You are right, sir," Mink conceded, a little reluctantly.

"And yet, if I'm not mistaken, Reiner was this department's number one target for many years in the middle of the war."

"Yes, that's true. He provided Wutai with a lot of their weaponry, running them guns he'd ripped off from us."

"Trading them out of Costa?" Rufus sounded idly curious.

"Sometimes. A few years before I joined the company there was an incident where Tseng was badly injured."

"Ah. Yes. He told me about that. So – Reiner was our enemy, and yet my old man sent the Turks to save him. Why would he do that?"

"Reiner was planning to switch sides," said Mink.

"Taking a leaf out of the Legend's book?"

Aviva flushed indignantly, but Mink replied, "Reiner killed Charlie's sister. Charlie switched sides when the Chief told him. He couldn't stomach fighting on the same side as Reiner after that."

"Whereas Reiner, you're suggesting, subsequently defected to Shinra for personal gain? Perhaps because he could see that Wutai was going to lose the war? I'm sure he had a good deal of valuable information that he was willing to trade in return for immunity. My old man must have been over the moon. And then the Wuteng discovered he was intending to betray them, and they imprisoned him?"

There was no faulting the Vice-President on his powers of deduction. Mink nodded.

"And then Veld, being ordered by the President to retrieve this precious item from the clutches of the perfidious Wuteng, chooses for the mission the one Turk above all others whom he knows has good reason to want Reiner dead, lies to him about Reiner's identity to make sure that he won't refuse the mission, and then punishes him for allowing Reiner to die by sending him into semi-retirement in the luxurious fleshpots of Costa del Sol? I think," said Rufus, smiling at them, "That I have been rather unjust to your Commander. Clearly he was a man who paid his debts, and insisted on payment from others. Of course he had to lie to the Legend, Mink. He couldn't let my father suspect he was complicit in the mission's failure. It's too bad, though, that we couldn't have extracted the information from Reiner first. If we'd known what he knew, it might have shortened the war by some months."

_That - is true_, thought Mink.

_In fact, everything he says is true._

She stared down into her mug of tea, grown cold in her hands. A wrinkled skin of milk had formed on the surface.

_He had his chance to escape, _she remembered, _and he didn't take it. He stayed here. With us._

Mink looked up at him again, but it seemed her eyes were doing something funny, because even though she knew he hadn't shifted position, or moved in any way, he appeared to be more substantial, more sharply focused than he'd been just a minute ago, which puzzled her for a moment, until she realized it wasn't anything he'd done, or anything wrong with her eyes; it was her, the change had taken place in her: she was finally seeing, for the first time, the future President Tseng sometimes spoke of – a man whom, until this moment, she hadn't really been able to believe in.

And she thought, _Maybe he __is__ one of us, after all._

* * *

_NB: Charlie's backstory is canon: I have taken it in its entirety from BC, nothing added or removed. Mink's backstory is my own invention. _

_Charlie doesn't die in BC; I ruthlessly killed him off for my own selfish purposes, and on the grounds of realism*, since I think even Turks have to die sometimes. I don't usually like warnings - they feel too much like spoilers - but if anyone feels strongly that there should be one, I'll add it. Also, I'm not really sure if Charlie counts as a major character. _

_As always, I thank you all for reading, and for your reviews, alerts, and favouritism. They are a wonderful reward. Many apologies for the long delay before posting this chapter. The site was being uncooperative. I'll be posting even less frequently for the next couple of months as it's a busy time at work, but I'll pick up the pace again in the summer. _

_ [*If it isn't absurd to speak of realism in the context of FFVII]  
_


	48. One Fine Day

_Since it's been a while, I should probably briefly recap. Several chapters ago, Tseng flew down with Reeve Tuesti to Gongaga, where, a day earlier, Zack had confronted Genesis and killed Hollander. After debriefing Cissnei, Tseng ordered her to follow Zack and Cloud to Mideel. As Tseng and Reeve were flying home, Tseng received a phone call from Charlie's PA telling him that Charlie had been murdered, and immediately diverted to Junon. Back in Midgar Mink volunteered for the task of breaking the news to Aviva, who was down in the bunker with Rufus. In Junon, Tseng discovered that AVALANCHE was behind Charlie's death, while in Midgar Rufus was given the perfect opportunity to escape from his imprisonment, but did not take it, causing Mink to wonder if she should change her mind about him._

_That was three days ago._

_._

**CHAPTER 48: ONE FINE DAY**

**_In which Aviva makes a new resolution, Tseng fails to keep his, and a bar in Wall Market presents the Turks with several problems_**

* * *

At noon on the day of Charlie's funeral, Aviva went to the lockers and changed into her dress uniform: black zippered jacket, knee-length skirt, black patent leather pumps, black gloves. Down at the ground floor loading bay she collected a flat-bed trolley, and took it, in the service elevator, up to the rooftop landing pad, where the helicopter carrying his body was just coming in to land. Although the Legend had been Junon born and bred, Tseng was bringing him back to Midgar for cremation, so that all the Turks could attend – or almost all, for Rufus could not be left unguarded. Mink and Rude had volunteered to take that duty.

As the helicopter began its final descent, the fluttering of its blades swelled to a high-pitching tearing sound - as if, she thought, the air were like one long endless sheet of paper being ripped and ripped and ripped to pieces. She pictured a pair of hands doing this, calloused hands, a man's hands, tearing up the pages of old reports into a blizzard of forgotten missions, with here and there a scrap still legible, a name, a place, a date.

Downwash from the rotors gusted into her face, whipping her curls around her head and throwing grit into her eyes. She tried to blink it away. The black skirt had plastered itself against her thighs; the jacket, which she'd left unzipped, flapped from her shoulders like wings. The roar of the helicopter throbbed in her teeth, vibrating through every part of her body until she could no longer be sure where her self ended and the noise began. That shriek seemed to be coming from inside her, tearing her inside out; _she_ was the one madly whirling, ripping the air to pieces, slamming gusts of rage against the building.

For a long moment she stood stock-still, abandoning herself to the sensation of turbulent weightlessness. Pain brought her back to earth: the pressure on her eardrums had become unbearable. Hunching over, she clamped a hand to either side of her head, and the grief was once again a lead weight sunk in the pit of her stomach.

The helicopter's runners touched down in the landing circle. A shudder passed through the machine as its engine died; the whump-whump of the rotors slowed and stopped. Tseng climbed out of the pilot's door. Aviva reached for the trolley, and began to pull it towards the helicopter, where Cavour was opening the fuselage doors. Hunter jumped down first, followed by Charlie's PA and several people Aviva knew by name from the Junon office. In the darkness of the helicopter's interior a patch of red was moving. Aviva heard a scraping sound, and an oblong, whitewashed box came into view. Tseng and the others carefully lifted it from the helicopter and placed it on the bed of the trolley. The coffin was squared-off. Its lid had been nailed down. One end looked the same as the other. Aviva couldn't tell if Charlie was going head first or feet first, and it bothered her, because head first would have been all wrong.

Tseng unrolled a company flag and smoothed it over the top of the coffin. The wind tugged at the fabric, threatening to blow it away. Cavour quickly held it down on one side, Hunter the other; Tseng took control of the trolley and set off in the direction of the lift. The others followed. Aviva was about to go after them, when a hand touched her shoulder and a voice she knew said gently, "Hey, Veev?"

Screwing her eyes shut against the rush of tears, she spun round. Blindly her fingers found and clutched the lapels of his jacket. She couldn't utter a sound, couldn't, for the life of her, let go. They'd have to pry her loose.

He hadn't expected her to throw herself at him; she felt his muscles tighten and flex, shifting his weight from foot to foot as he sought to regain his balance. Then he put his arms around her and pulled her closer. Through the thin fabric of his shirt she could felt his heart beating against her cheek.

_Hold me forever_, she wanted to cry.

Reno did hold her for quite a while, standing there patiently with his arms around her while the rest of Charlie's funeral cortege disappeared into the building. The ground staff, who had remained out of sight as a mark of respect, eventually re-emerged, and began to go about their business. It was time to move. Reno gave Aviva's shoulders a final squeeze and took a step back, holding her at arm's length to look her up and down.

"OK now?" he asked.

She gulped and nodded.

With a gentle nudge he turned her around, saying firmly, "Then let's go."

.

In the early evening, when the funeral was over, Tseng went down to the bunker to relieve Mink and Rude. The two Turks exited the interior of the plate by separate ways, Rude headed who-knew-where (though Mink guessed a certain watering hole in Sector Seven), she for the office, where she ran into Knox and Cavour sitting round the Turks' lounge, both of them at a loose end, still dressed in their funeral black. "Where's Veev?" she asked. They told her Aviva had gone back to the place she was staying. She'd said she wanted to be alone.

On the TV a travel show was coming to end. They hadn't really been watching it anyway. Knox suggested going for a drink. Sherry, they felt, was called for, but Tseng had put Augusto's out of bounds for casual drinking. Cavs said why didn't they go to this place he knew in Wall Market, a hole-in-the-wall affair that sold pretty decent dry sherry, as well as the sweetest water-of-life – aquavit, grappa, liquid phoenix down, whatever you wanted to call it – anywhere this side of the Inland Sea. They distilled it themselves, he said, from an old family recipe. Knox asked whose family. "Mine," Cavs replied. "My uncle owns the place."

Knox laughed. "According to you, ninety-nine point nine per cent of all the people in Wall Market are either your uncle, your aunt, or your cousin."

"Shinra isn't the only family business in town. So, who's game?"

"I'm in," said Mink. She had nowhere else to go and nothing better to do, and getting drunk with her team-mates was always a… friendly way to pass the time, if nothing else. They took the train down to Sector Six, ate noodles standing up in a noodle bar owned by another of Cavour's cousins, and finally ended up at the place he'd been talking about, a cramped, low-lit tavern, its peeling linoleum floor pitted with heel marks and cigarette burns. There were deep burgundy-upholstered booths to sit in, and on the red walls hung portraits of apple-cheeked country girls, painted on black velvet. It felt like the kind of establishment where you could fall asleep at your table after one too many, and be woken in the morning by the proprietor bringing you a cup of black coffee. "It's got atmosphere, I'll give you that," said Mink.

The bartender brought them the aquavit in a hand-blown glass jug, pleasingly feminine in shape. The liquid, when Cavour poured it, was almost clear, with just the faintest hint of green grapeskins, like water tainted by a drop of mako. Mink took her time savouring the bright burn of the first mouthful.

The bar door swung open and Hunter came striding in. "Reno told me I'd find you here. Squidge over," she ordered Knox, sliding onto the seat next to him.

Mink wasn't thrilled to see her. It wasn't that she disliked Hunter, not any more – in fact, she couldn't think of any Turk she'd rather have at her back in a fight. Hunter was _relentless_. But Hunter was also fond of the sound of her own voice, and if Mink had been in the mood for conversation she might as well have stayed in the office and kept Reno company at the duty desk. He'd almost certainly have a bottle of vodka stashed in the bottom drawer, and could easily have been persuaded to share it.

Too bad Rude hadn't been the one to join them. Mink would have preferred it; the two of them were on the same wavelength. He was closed like a fist, like Mink herself, while Hunter – she always had to be shooting her mouth off. Maybe it was something about choosing the weapon that spoke to your soul, like child prodigies and their musical instruments. Or maybe Turks just evolved to resemble their weapons, the way dog owners started to look like their mutts. Or a bit of both.

Then Mink remember that Cavs was a gun-man too. Well, so much for that theory.

Still, it wasn't a night for being alone, and Tys was bodyguarding the Old Man at some charity fundraiser, so Knox shifted over to make room for the new arrival, and they called the bartender to bring them another glass. Hunter's teetotal days were a distant memory; she tossed back two shots of acquavit in quick succession, pausing long enough to give it her seal of approval - "Hey, smooth!" - before launching into the big questions. So, what did they think? What was it all about, really? What had Charlie died for? So Fuhito could give them the big bloody finger? So Elfe could say 'fuck you, dad'?

This was why Mink could have done without her company. She didn't want to go over it all again. Round and round in circles. Got them nowhere.

Knox said that for all they knew, Fuhito had held a gun to Elfe's head.

Hunter wanted to know who gave a shit. The bitch had a summons leaching off her innards; she ought to be dead already. Whatever she'd been once, whatever _name_ she'd had once, she was one of Hojo's monsters now, and not a single one of those mutants had ever been turned back to what they'd been before. And that wasn't even taking into consideration what Fuhito must have done to her since. There was no way she was salvageable. The best thing, the _kindest_ thing they could do for the Chief was find her before he did, and kill her before she got them all killed.

None of the others were inclined to disagree. Hunter poured herself another shot and threw it to the back of her throat. "Be careful," Cavour warned her. "That stuff's ninety percent proof, and nobody wants to carry you home. I'm getting a beer. Anyone else?"

.

Tseng had gone to the bunker fully intending to have a long talk with Rufus in which he would explain, rationally, convincingly, and irrefutably, why their relationship must end. But Rufus didn't give him much of a chance to speak, and Tseng… Tseng had exhausted his reserves of self-denial. For the last three days everyone around him had been making demands of him, and leaning on him, and looking to him for their orders, taking it as a given that he was and always would be in command of the situation and of his own feelings. No one realized how profoundly the sight of Charlie's remains heaped on the bloody floor had shaken him – because he'd taken care not to let them see. No one had asked him how hewas coping, because he'd always discouraged that kind of concern. They thought they knew him; they all assumed that he was somehow protected from the experience of grief and fear or too hard or too cold for the loss to cut very deeply. And he knew that this was what they needed him to be; it was how he presented himself and what he wanted them to believe in – but _damn_, he was tired of being their rock. A shoulder to rest his head on, hands whose touch spoke of their gladness that he was alive: were these too much to ask for? Weren't they what every human being needed? Why the hell was it anybody else's business, anyway? Didn't he do enough for them already?

The sex was rough, mirthless and intense, and for the first time in a long time there was pain mixed in with the pleasure. Rufus seemed to want it, to need it. His fingernails cut deeply into Tseng's skin, urging him to hurry. Only when they'd finished did he start laughing - when the two of them were both spent and sticky and their breath had fallen out of synch with one another, and Tseng got up on his elbows intending to roll away, but Rufus, refusing to let him go, wrestled him back down to the floor and lay athwart him, his hands pinning Tseng's arms to his sides, his knee hooked over Tseng's thigh… That was when Rufus started to laugh.

It began as a giggle, but quickly rose to a frantic pitch, Rufus's mouth twisting out of shape round the ugly sounds it was making. His body, pressed against Tseng's, shook uncontrollably as he fought for air. Tseng had to put his arms around him and hold him tight for several minutes before he was able to stop.

"Oh god," he gasped in Tseng's ear. "Oh god. I thought you were dead. I thought it was you."

These were the first coherent sentences he had uttered since Rude and Mink had left the two of them alone together, twenty minutes before.

"But you knew I wasn't dead," said Tseng, all tender reasonableness.

"It was only for a moment. The longest moment of my life. When Mink came to break the news and I saw in her face that somebody had died, I was sure she was going to say you."

"But - "

"Tseng, please, just _listen_, can't you? When I thought you were dead it was like – I can't describe what it was like. Like falling. Have you ever had one of those dreams when you're falling and you never hit the bottom? It was like that. It went on forever. I was completely numb. My mind went blank. The only thing I could think was, 'it wasn't worth it'."

"Rufus – "

"Wait, I'm not finished. In that split second when I thought you were dead, I realized something. I realized I'd give anything to have you back again – the company, the money, the power, everything. If God existed, I'd have struck the bargain there and then and signed it in my own blood."

"And regretted it later, when you'd had time to think things over," Tseng replied with a smile. He only wanted to lighten the mood, but even before he'd finished speaking he knew he'd miscalculated. Rufus liked to laugh; what he could not endure was being laughed at_, _especially in his moments of self-dramatisation. He stared at Tseng, blue eyes full of wounded reproach, and then tried to pull himself away. Tseng only tightened his embrace. There was a brief struggle, which Tseng won.

"Why do you have to say things like that?" Rufus demanded. "Is that what you really believe? That I would regret it?"

"Don't take it so seriously. I spoke without thinking."

"You never speak without thinking. And don't dodge my question."

"I can't answer a meaningless question."

Rufus's face reddened. "I just told you that I would gladly give up everything for your sake, and your only response was to laugh and say that if I did, I'd regret it. I then, quite reasonably I think, asked you why you felt the need to belittle my feelings. In what way is that a meaningless question?"

"Because it's not a bargain you'd ever be called upon to keep. If I die, no amount of money is going to bring me back. Talking as if it could is just cheap sentimentalism."

Tseng meant to speak plainly, to be honest. He wasn't trying to hurt Rufus. But Rufus flinched. Tseng, holding him, felt it, and knew he ought to have kept his mouth shut. Tonight, it seemed, was one of those nights when it was impossible to say anything right, or to touch one another without leaving bruises. Rufus took a long breath, swallowing his mortification, so that when he next spoke he sounded coolly indifferent:

"Cheap sentimentalism, is it?" - and Tseng understood he was going to be made to pay for that; maybe in a minute, or maybe a week from now, or for what remained of his life. "If that's true, then tell me, what is my money good for? What's the use of all that gil, if it can't buy me the one thing I actually want?"

.

Aviva no longer kept a diary. She had given up that secret pleasure when she put away childish things. The ones she had written in the days before Corel, the days of her Turk adolescence, she had burnt right after she gave the box of her cuddlies to the orphanage down in Sector Seven. These days she travelled light: most of her clothes were kept in her locker in the office, and everything else she owned could be packed into a small holdall, the more easily to move from place to place.

She'd told her colleagues the truth when she said that she wanted to be alone, but had lied about going back to the place she was currently staying, a rented room, not much wider than her outstretched arms, up three flights of stairs above a tattoo parlour on the outskirts of Sector Five. She'd felt too drained, too sad, to make the effort to get across town tonight. So she'd taken the lift to the sixty-fourth floor, and signed in for one of the cots in the rest room.

Rosalind was there ahead of her. The older woman had removed her shoes, but was otherwise fully clothed in the uniform she had worn to Charlie's funeral, lying curled on her side with her hands tucked under her cheek. _She even sleeps neatly_, thought Aviva. There must have been some tossing and turning earlier: the blanket had slipped to the floor. Aviva picked it up and smoothed it over Rosalind's back and shoulders. As she did so, she felt the bulge of the holster beneath her friend's jacket. _So she sleeps armed as well as dressed_, Aviva reflected. _That's probably smart._

She lay down on the cot next to Roz, folding an arm behind her head and staring up at the softly diffuse, barely blue pot lights. Waiting to fall asleep was always the worst time of day, when the monsters she usually kept banished beneath her bed came out to stare at her with their hungry eyes. _You're going to die_, they whispered. _The fire will consume you also. A bullet will enter between your eyes before you have time to speak, and those words you never had the courage to utter will turn to stones in your throat. _

In the old days she would have got up, turned on a light, taken out her diary, and written until the nightmares that swarmed inside her head retreated back to the darkness they came from. But she didn't need that crutch any more. She was strong; Charlie had said so. She could hold fear at bay with her thoughts alone, with the resolution she was, at this very moment, forming in her mind:

_I'm going to find a way to tell him how I feel. It doesn't matter that he doesn't feel the same; I just don't want to die without having told him. For once – just once –I want him to look at me and see a woman. Otherwise, it will all have been for nothing. _

_._

Hunter was very drunk now, holding forth on Genesis and her theories about the best way to kill him so he stayed dead. Knox, eyes almost closed behind his glasses, was pretending to listen; Cavour had gone across the room to play darts with a stranger, and Mink's bladder was bursting. "Going for a pee," she said.

The tiny toilet was barely big enough to turn round in. The towel hanging on the pedestal sink was filthy. Mink came out backwards, air-drying her hands, and walked right into somebody blonde. "Whoa, Roz!" she exclaimed, before realizing her mistake. The girl she'd bumped into – knocked against the wall, in fact – was much younger than her co-worker, and had longer hair, tied up in two schoolgirl bunches. "Are you OK?" Mink apologized. "Sorry – for a moment I thought you were a friend of mine."

The girl looked her up and down, a look full of scorn and – what was more remarkable – without fear, though she was a foot shorter than Mink, and Mink was still dressed in her suit. "Like I'd be caught dead," she said, tossing her head and trying to push past.

Normally Mink would have let it go. For one thing, the girl was just a kid; for another, throwing her weight around when she was off the clock seemed amateurish to her. It was the kind of thing rookies did, when they were still all excited about their new power and couldn't resist playing with it. Tonight, though things were different. It wasn't just Mink this snotty kid had just insulted, it was Charlie. It was all of them.

She laid a hand on the girl's shoulder and shoved her back against the wall. The girl stared up at her, unfazed, and unapologetic.

Mink said, "Hey. Where's your manners?"

The girl rolled her eyes – she _rolled her eyes_, like some teen drama queen getting a scolding from her drudge of a mother. What the hell? Was she blind? Had she been raised in a cave a million miles from nowhere, cut off from all contact with civilization? Couldn't she see what Mink _was_?

A split-second later Mink was grasping empty air, and the door to the toilet was being locked from the inside.

The way the girl had done it – turning in towards Mink instead of trying to pull free from her, and ducking under Mink's other arm to tie the taller woman in a knot – spoke of some kind of training. But it wasn't just the fact of her escape that left Mink flabbergasted. It was the speed. She wouldn't have believed anybody but Reno could move so fast. Though if her reflexes hadn't been mellowed by alcohol, it might have been a different story –

"Hey, you! Turk!" called the girl from the other side of the door. Mink bent her knees, and saw through the keyhole the gleam of a black pupil moving in a brown iris. "It's lucky for you I don't feel like getting my hands dirty tonight," the girl declared.

Mink toyed with the idea of kicking the flimsy door down and giving the brat's ears a good boxing. Then she remembered how Tseng would flay her with a look if she got herself into a bar brawl tonight of all nights, and she decided it wasn't worth losing the department's dignity over. Not for some lippy teenager who happened to be having a bad day.

In Mink's experience, there were two kinds of people who came looking for trouble: the ones with a bona fide grudge, and the ones who were just pissed off at the world generally and had decided to blame it on Shinra. The ones with a grudge were usually upfront about it. _ You ruined my business! You destroyed my marriage! You killed my father! _ (Like their own incompetence, or infidelity, or treason, had nothing to do with it; like Turks were just pianos that fell from the sky.) The departmental protocol for dealing with such people had remained unchanged since Veld's day: disarm them; cast Confuse, if available, or hyper in large doses, to wipe their memory of the event, then put them to Sleep and remove oneself from the vicinity. Only if the avenger were deemed to pose a real and persistent threat to the welfare of the company or its employees would he or she be eliminated; the D.A.R. was not in the business of sustaining feuds. But in any case, Shinra's generous no-fault compensation packages and widow's pensions meant that such attacks were few and far between.

As for the ones who were angry at the world and wanted to take it out on a blue suit – the protocol wasn't all that different, but was much less strictly enforced. Mink guessed this teen was trouble of the latter sort.

So she banged on the toilet door – not hard, just enough to make it rattle, so the kid would know she _could_ have punched it in if she'd felt like it – said, "That must feel pretty brave, talking trash behind a locked door," and turned to go.

"Are you spying on me?" the girl called out to her.

Mink stopped and turned back. "What_?"_

"How did you find out I work here?"

_Oh, now I get it_, thought Mink. She'd forgotten there was a third kind of trouble. The crazy kind.

"I _told_ her_," _the girl in the toilet cried, "I'm not talking to any of you! There's a million other bars in Midgar. Go drown your troubles in one of them, and stop following me around. I can take of myself."

Apparently the kid was delusional. Not to mention a little paranoid. And at this rate, if it was true that she worked here, she'd be out of a job by the end of the week. Crouching down, Mink put her mouth to the keyhole and said, almost kindly, "Girl, listen. I have no idea what your problem is, but I don't think your boss is going to like it if you keep telling his customers to go drink somewhere else. He won't be too happy with you monopolizing the toilet, either. That's my advice. You're free to take it or leave it."

Mink waited a few seconds, but no reply was forthcoming, so she returned to her table. Cavour was up at the bar with the darts player. Hunter appeared to be fast asleep against Knox's shoulder. Knox's face had settled into sad lines, and his thoughts were many miles away.

"So," said Mink, taking her seat. "How's Fort Condor? Any closer to a resolution?"

It took a moment for his eyes to fully focus on her. Then he shook his head. "Still a stand-off, with no end in sight. There's talk of a full-on assault. The army's pretty gung-ho, but I don't understand what the rush is. The egg'll hatch in a few months and the problem'll solve itself. That reactor's been out of commission for years, anyway. I keep wondering, what exactly are we trying to prove? I don't know," he sighed, "Maybe I'm getting too old for this. I feel like I've seen it all before."

Mink thought his eyes looked tired – not the skin around his eyes, but the eyes themselves.

"Knox?" mumbled Hunter sleepily.

"Yeah?"

"D'you know what Reno said to me tonight? He told me to take my mouth somewhere else and leave him alone. I don't think that's very nice. He doesn't like me. Why doesn't Reno like me, Knox?"

"Because you hate him, Hunt, remember?" To Mink he said, "We ought to take this girl home soon, before she starts crying. Or shooting. Or both."

"She's such a lame drunk," Mink smiled.

"I just want to get on with everybody," Hunter sniffled. "But it's so hard."

Cavour now rejoined them, sitting down beside Mink and folding his hands on the table. Leaning forward, he said in an undertone, "There's a problem," and nodded his head in the direction of the bar, where the stranger he had been playing darts with stood alone, hunched over a pint of lager. To Mink's eyes there was something off about the man's posture. He listed slightly to the left, as if his internal balance mechanism needed recalibrating. She saw his lips move, and realised he was talking to himself.

"Another crazy," she said. "This bar's full of them."

"We have to look after each other," Hunter announced, her Mideel accent thickening as her tongue grew sloppier.

"He's completely stoned," said Cavour. "Doped up on prescription painkillers, and other stuff he's self-medicating. He got injured at work, he told me. Got laid off four years ago. He ran through his worker's comp and now he's got nothing. Wife dumped him. Can't get work because of his injury. I bought him that beer."

A movement in the corner of the room caught Mink's eye. She glanced over, and saw the bartender shoving a dishcloth into the hands of the paranoid schoolgirl from the toilet before pushing her into kitchen out back. So, she did work here, after all. Mink returned her attention to her colleagues, in time to hear Knox say, "Anybody can find work in this town if they want it badly enough. How'd he hurt himself?"

"He fell off some scaffolding."

"And why is his bad luck our problem?"

"The scaffolding he fell off of was at Nibelheim."

Ah. That would explain why Cavour was looking stone cold sober. Mink felt the warmth draining from her own veins. "He told _you _that?" she asked, not because she doubted him, but because it seemed so unlikely.

Cavour said, "I got the impression he'll tell anyone who'll listen."

"Careless talk costs lives," Hunter solemnly slurred.

Maybe the poor bastard had been hoping for a little sympathy, company man to company man. Or, god knows, maybe he'd just had enough. Stranger things had happened. She'd seen them.

Men were clumsy, sometimes. They got drunk, they got reckless, or they just didn't care. They slipped, and when they did, the Turks were the knives on which they fell, the ropes that got caught around their necks. But Mink didn't feel like being anybody's knife tonight. She just wanted to go home and sleep.

"D'you think anyone would believe him?" she asked. "I mean, look at him."

Unwashed. Unshaven. The sole falling off his right shoe. Worn elbows on a jacket too large for him. Hungry hollows in his cheeks. The complete picture of a loser.

Knox shrugged. The movement sent Hunter's head sliding down his arm to rest in the crook of his elbow. "We're off duty," he reminded them.

"All time is company time," Hunter burbled. "Shinra owns _everything."_

Mink said, "There's probably two, three dozen guys just like him in Midgar right now, getting drunk and dumping their shit on some unlucky bartender. What's one more or less?"

"By following that argument to its logical conclusion, you'd move to Gongaga and farm organic cabbages," Cavour replied.

"There were hundreds of workmen at Nibelheim," said Mink. "Do you really think we can keep it hushed up forever?"

"Not forever, just long enough. Old Man is old," said Cavour meaningfully.

"And the sins of the father will be visited on the son," Knox rounded off the thought. Hunter was fast asleep on his arm now, slack-mouthed and boneless, dribbling into the cloth of his sleeve.

Mink kept her voice low as she said, "That whole business was so stupid and short-sighted and just – so bloody, bloody stupid. It was the knee-jerk reaction of someone who thinks he can slay every problem that comes at him with Gil Toss. If we'd gone public with the truth we could have ridden out the storm, we could have basked in all the good press for rebuilding the town, and we wouldn't be sitting here now holding this ticking time bomb."

"You need to get your priorities straight, Mink." Cavour's voice was laced with sarcasm. "There was Hojo's lab to be protected, remember?"

"Yeah. The one thing Sephiroth ought to have burnt, he missed."

Knox said, "What's done is done. I'm not arguing with you, but I don't see any point in discussing it. We can't fix the past."

"You weren't there."

"You guys don't have to keep saying that. I know I wasn't there. That's not the issue. We need to start looking to the future. Beyond Commander Veld."

"Nothing's going to change," said Mink. "The entire Board of Directors is barking mad."

"Yeah, seems that way," Cavour nodded. "But you know who _isn't _crazy? Rufus."

The three of them looked at each other, realizing they all shared the same thought. Mink was remembering what the Vice-President had done and said the night of Charlie's death, the perceptiveness he'd shown, and how he could so easily have escaped, but had elected to stay. Knox and Cavs, she guessed, were recalling similar experiences, bringing them to the same conclusion.

She said, "He ought to be nine kinds of crazy, considering the upbringing he had. But you're right, Cavs, our V.P.'s got his head screwed on."

"_Now_ he does," said Knox, "Thanks to Tseng."

"Thanks to all of us," Cavour corrected him.

"A sane President," mused Mink. "There's a thought."

"One fine day, huh?" Knox smiled his lop-sided smile, the one that looked like a snarl but wasn't, showing all the teeth on the left side of his mouth. "If we live so long."

"If Shinra lasts so long," said Cavour. It sounded as if he'd made up his mind about something.

From the depths of the pillow she had made of Knox's forearm, Hunter uttered a rich, fat snore. Knox shook her gently with his free hand. "Wake up, Hunt. It's time to go home. Mink, help me get her on her feet."

"You guys go," said Cavour. "I'll get that problem sorted."

Mink wasn't about to argue with him. In the larger scheme of things, taking into consideration the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people, a single life was a fair trade-off; this was the principle she'd found she could live by. And she wasn't going to say 'well, the sad sack's at the end of his tether, you're probably doing him a favour anyway,' because the Chief would have slapped her mouth into next Tuesday for it, and Tseng – Tseng would have inquired, in his knife-that-had-just-been-sterilised-in-liquid-nitrogen voice, why she felt it necessary to _trivialize._ The lies they told were not for each other. It was one of the first things she'd liked about their Department.

Holding Hunter up between them, Mink and Knox walked her to the door. As they were going out, Mink half- turned, and looking over her shoulder caught sight of the angry schoolgirl from the toilet staring at them, a wet dishcloth clenched in her fist. When she realised Mink had seen her, her eyes narrowed, but she raised her chin and squared her shoulders, refusing to back down. Something in that stance resonated with Mink. The girl held herself like a martial artist – a good one. Was that the source of her fearlessness? Did she think she could take a Turk on?

All the way back on the train, Mink's thoughts kept returning to the girl. She seemed like quite a handful, but there was potential in her, and the Department had tamed wilder: Knox, Reno, even Tys. Five years had passed since he'd signed up: five years since the incident at the fountain. They hadn't had a rookie in five years_, _and they'd lost two in that time. Three, if you counted Cissnei.

Had things been different, Mink would have gone straight to Tseng and told him to check out the girl for himself. But now was not the time to be thinking about new recruits. Not when they didn't know if there was still going to be a Department of Administrative Research this time next year, or even three months hence. Not when their most pressing order of business had become the need to determine who was likeliest to kill them first: their old enemy, or their own employer.

* * *

A loss of feeling woke Tseng from a fitful doze. His right arm had gone numb, trapped under Rufus' sleeping body. He eased it free, clenched the fist till sensation returned, and went back to sleep. The next time he woke up, Rufus was sitting cross-legged next to him, wide awake, looking down at him. Tseng had the strangest feeling that the concentration in those eyes was what had called him from his sleep. They made love again, more considerately this time, and when it was over they lay facing each other, Rufus with his cheek cradled on his left arm, his hand arched over his head at a languid angle.

Tseng hoped Rufus would go on lying quietly for a while. He didn't feel like talking, not tonight. All he wanted was to lie here and look at him, touch him, be with him, empty his mind of everything else and simply be, for this one night, entirely in the moment. If he had to think at all, the only person he wanted to think about was the one lying beside him, less than an arm's reach away.

Rufus obligingly held his peace for a little while, allowing Tseng's eyes, and then his hands, to travel where they liked. Shivering, he murmured, "Will you still love me when I'm old and ugly?"

"You could never be ugly," Tseng assured him, running a hand down the line of his flank to rest on his hip. But apparently this – the words, the touch, or both – was the wrong answer, for Rufus gave a soft snort, deeply expressive of impatience and disappointment, brushed Tseng's hand away, and stood up, saying, "Don't be too sure. Maybe I'll end up taking after my old man after all."

He went into the bathroom, but didn't shut the door. Tseng lay on the floor and listened to the sounds of him pissing, washing, flossing his teeth, spitting into the sink, and all the while talking, talking – about Charlie, about AVALANCHE, about mako, about Board memoranda, about Gongaga…. Tseng soon stopped listening, and his thoughts returned to the question Rufus had posed earlier, the one for which Tseng could find no answer: what good was money, when time was short, love was priceless, and life was cheap?

Money couldn't buy Shinra's Chief Turk the one thing he longed for: to be twenty-one again, self-centred and reckless like that boy in there. He was tired of perpetually playing the elder, the responsible one, the voice of patience and moderation, which were things he wasn't even sure he believed in any more. Surely it was Rufus's turn now? Tseng wanted to be the younger one for a while; to be somebody's child again, and let them take back the burden of making the decisions. But no amount of money could restore to him the years he had spent, or make him anything less than a full decade older than Rufus, and far older than that in his experience of the world.

Money couldn't turn back the clock. Money couldn't buy them time. Or freedom. It couldn't buy them anything useful. Except guns, of course. And materia. And rope, to hang oneself with –

"I know the last few days have been hellish for you," said Rufus, coming back into the room. "But I don't think it's just the Legend. There's something else on your mind. Something that you're not telling me. You've been acting strangely all night. If there's something going on that I should know about – I mean, that _I _would think I needed to know about, because I know there are things you keep from me, and to be honest with you – "

"Shut up!" Tseng cried. "Just – shut up, Rufus, please."

The first strangled cry of _shut up_ had arrested Rufus in mid-stride. As the sound of Tseng's outburst faded, he remained standing in the middle of the floor, motionless, looking more baffled than offended.

Tseng immediately pulled himself together. "I'm sorry," he said, getting to his feet. "That was uncalled for. You're right, I'm not myself. I – I'm sorry, but there's so much to do. I have to get dressed now. It's nearly time."

As he passed Rufus, he reached out and pulled him in for a quick hug, intended to be reassuring. Rufus said, "You're running away from me."

"I'm going back to work."

"So this isn't work?"

"Idiot," said Tseng tenderly, letting him go.

In the bathroom he cut himself shaving with Rufus's borrowed razor. His hand jerked at the sudden sting. A drop of his blood fell onto the tap, glistening violently red against the buffed metal. Tseng stood, looking at it and thinking, for a long time.

* * *

_Dear readers, thank you for reading. My apologies for the long delay._

_In retrospect, there's a lot about bathrooms in this chapter. I love the bathrooms in FFVII, with all their intimate detail: the shower curtains, the bath mats, the tiny bars of soap, the perfectly drawn rolls of toilet paper sitting on top of the cisterns. Those bathrooms are one of the things that makes their world seem so vividly alive, populated by real people, with with all the necessarily concomitant bodily functions, leading real lives. It was always a disappointment to me that Cloud could never have a bath in any of those bathtubs. I'm sure he needed one! _


	49. All the Ones with Wings Have Flown

**Chapter 49: All The Ones With Wings Have Flown**

* * *

The next morning, on Tseng's orders, Skeeter the fair northerner donned a brown wig and dark contact lenses, dressed himself in sweats and a hoodie and a pair of tattered trainers, wrapped a Shinra Military Academy scarf around his neck to hide the tell-tale tattoo, and with eleven fake IDs in his pockets went down to the slums to buy eleven cell phones on the black market, no questions asked. He registered accounts for them, the pay-as-you-go kind that used scratch cards, with three different providers, at nine different booths, in six different sectors. The mission took him from dawn till dusk, but by the end of the day the eleven surviving operatives of the Midgar office of Shinra's Department of Administrative Research were in possession of a D.I.Y. communications network that was all the more effective for its simplicity. Tseng instructed them to use the phones only for emergencies; for all ordinary business they must continue to use their standard-issue PHS, lest a sudden drop in the volume of traffic rouse the suspicions of their enemies. Rosalind passed round lists of their new numbers. After the Turks had committed these to memory, Tys took the lists to the furnace room and stood guard over them while they burned.

.

In the course of the following week, Tseng went down to the bunker three times.

Each time they began to make love, he told himself, _this is the last time._

.

The first call he made on his new phone was to Cissnei.

Zack and Strife hadn't yet embarked for Mideel. She'd tracked them down to an old inn near the docks, and had taken a room for herself at a pub across the road. For the last four days she'd been watching the inn door, but Strife had never appeared, and Zack had only come out twice, once to buy oranges and once to run up the hill into a pharmacists that sold potions, ethers, and other elixirs; five minutes later he'd come out carrying something heavy in a brown paper bag and gone straight back to the inn. Adding everything together, it looked as if Strife had suffered a mako crisis, and Zack was now waiting for him to regain some strength before they continued their journey.

"I heard about the Legend," she said. "Those photos in the paper…"

The news chiefs of every broadsheet in Midgar had received the photos on their cell phones, thought only the editor of the local edition of Wutai's _Leviathan_ had been misguided enough to print them. Hunter had explained to her the error of her ways, and Tseng trusted there would be no more lapses in decorum from the press. But the damage was done. The Legend's pre-Shinra notoriety made a degree of public interest inevitable: the images were widely circulating, and once seen, could not be unseen.

"Revenge?" she asked.

"Partly, I assume. The subject we interrogated didn't have much information. He made himself an easy target. He let his guard down."

"Was it as bad as it looked?"

"Yes."

Static crackled on the line. The phone was a cheap one.

She said, "We don't die easily, do we? And we don't die for nothing, either. They may think they've weakened us, but they've made us stronger." Her voice was fading in and out.

"Stay alert, Cissnei. Watch your back."

"And you, Boss. I'm sure you're taking good care of everyone, but don't forget to look after yourself. I'll call again tomorrow, same time."

The next day, when she called, she had nothing new to report.

The following day, however, she was able to tell him that Zack had come out of the inn, carrying Strife over his shoulder, and had sat with him on a bench overlooking the sea for a good half hour before going in again.

Tseng thought uneasily of all the eyes that must have seen them. Those two had been in one place long enough. He was relieved when she called the next afternoon to tell him that Zack had just bought tickets for the ferry, and that she had got one for herself. They would set sail in the evening, when the tide turned.

Fourteen hours later, as Tseng and Rufus were eating breakfast, Cissnei called once more. She told him the ferry had just docked. Zack had been the first to disembark, roaring away on his motorbike with Strife stuffed in the sidecar, spikey head lolling from side to side. There was no way she could keep up with them on foot; therefore, with Tseng's permission, she was going thumb a lift to Mideel town and hire a chocobo to take her overland to Banora. The roads down in that part of the world were terrible anyway, nothing but ruts, dust, and potholes. If she could find a decent bird she might be able to reach Banora before Zack did. Tseng told her to go ahead, and to keep him posted.

While they spoke, Rufus quietly went on eating. He waited until Tseng had closed the phone and put it down before wondering aloud, "Am I the only one who finds it hard to believe that a wanted man as conspicuous as Zack Fair – ex-SOLDIER, six foot three, mako eyes – could have travelled all the way from Gongaga to Mideel, dragging his comatose friend behind him, without being spotted by anybody? Heidegger's staff isn't entirely composed of idiots. Surely the possibility that he might head for Banora must have occurred to someone?"

Those were Tseng's thoughts exactly. Genesis was a prize worth chasing, but if it was going to cost him another member of his team, the price was too high. He was anxious at the thought of Cissnei handling so much on her own, concerned for Zack's safety, increasingly afraid that they were walking into a trap, and full of misgivings about his own actions. Had he made a mistake in giving her this assignment? At the time she had seemed like the obvious choice – the forgotten Turk, unlikely to be recognized, with a personal stake in the success of her mission. But he hadn't really been thinking clearly, had he? His mind had been preoccupied with another matter, his driving force the need to hurry back to Midgar.

That other matter now pointed the spoon with which he had been stirring his tea at Tseng and said, "I know what you're thinking. But you are not going anywhere near Banora, so get that idea out of your head right now. If Scarlet doesn't know yet where Fair and Genesis are, you'd be giving their position away. If she does know, you don't want to give her any reason to suspect that you know too. She'd have you up before my father on a charge of withholding information."

"I have no plans to go to Banora…" _Not right now. Though if circumstances were to change –_

"Then what scheme are you hatching, if you don't mind my asking?"

Tseng considered telling Rufus the truth: that he had an ultimate goal, but little in the way of strategy; that he hadn't yet made up his mind how much Zack's life was worth to him. Then he had a better idea.

"What would you do?" he asked.

Rufus laughed. "If it had been up to me, this situation would never have arisen in the first place. I'd have made sure Hojo's lab was burnt down along with the rest of Nibelheim; I'd have had the pods and all the other evidence destroyed, and Hojo publicly executed – and I'd have been open and above-board about the rest. I certainly would not have thrown away a valuable commodity like Zack Fair. He was the perfect candidate to be our new poster boy. One hero falls, another rises… The public eats up that sort of thing. It's so much more cost-effective than lying. Now, though…" Rufus shrugged eloquently, "Fair's a threat to the company."

"As are we, in the eyes of some."

Rufus seemed to find that amusing. "As was I, though you are kindly refraining from reminding me. Ah, the irony, the irony." His eyes crinkled, briefly, but then he grew serious. "Tseng, listen. I can see that Zack Fair is important to you, though to be honest, I've never really understood why. I'm not even sure what it is, exactly, that you think you can do for him. You can't win this one. It's a 'lose-lose situation', to coin a phrase; you can't gain anything by helping him, not for us, or for Veld, or for your own cause. But I appreciate that for some reason you need to feel that you did everything you could. So – go ahead and do what you must. All I ask is, please, keep it within the bounds of reason. You know that you're being self-indulgent. I trust that you'll know when it's time to stop."

.

Cissnei rode into a grove of apple trees and pulled up her chocobo. For the last few miles the stench of raw mako had been growing steadily stronger. Now it was almost thick enough to gag on, mixed with the cloying sweetness of the rotting fruit that lay in heaps under the trees. Beyond the crest of the next hill she could see the sails of a broken windmill turning forlornly against the harsh blue sky. Banora lay over that hill. It was time to dismount. She would cover the remaining distance stealthily, on foot.

As soon as her feet touched the ground she realized the grass was crawling with wasps. No wonder the bird had been kicking! But the wasps were harmless, too drunk on fermented apple flesh to do more than buzz at her sleepily. Watching where she placed her feet, Cissnei crept up the slope, gun in hand. When she reached the brow of the hill she lay down, and inched forward until she reached a vantage point that commanded a clear view of the entire village.

The shell of the Rhapsodos manor was still standing, though its roof had fallen in. The rest of Banora had been swallowed almost entirely by a sinkhole of immense proportions. Bombs alone could not have done that. The terrain must have been unstable to start with. This entire region was prone to earthquakes and riddled with caverns, most of them unexplored and unmapped. According to legend, the network of caves delved right to the centre of the earth, and looking at the scene spread out before her, Cissnei could believe it. Banora's collapse had exposed the deep reservoirs of mako that lay beneath; a glowing green fog wafted up from the mouth of the sinkhole, swirling like the smoke from one of Reno's cigarettes -

Homesickness engulfed her.

She rode its wave for a moment, then shook off nostalgia and bent her mind to the task of assessing her surroundings. The place seemed utterly peaceful, utterly deserted. The only sounds she could detect were the singing of birds, the rustle of the breeze in the trees, the hum of the wasps, and the distant creak of the windmill. With no human hands to prune them, the cottage gardens had run wild: thick patches of coarse, blushing rhubarb had escaped the herb beds and colonized the hillsides, and all the fields on this side of the Rhapsodos house were overrun with pumpkin vines. Bougainvillea, scarlet and white, had spread itself everywhere, up the walls of the broken buildings, along the split-rail fences, and into the apple-arbors, hanging in brilliant, papery festoons from the bowed trunks of the trees. In many places the thorns had woven themselves together to form an impenetrable barrier. To cut through it, one would have needed a sword.

_Like a village in a fairy tale, _she thought. _A village under a curse…._

Cissnei gave herself a mental slap. Such thoughts were too much like the moonlit musings she had resolved to leave behind in Gongaga. There was no sleeping princess here - nor any sign of Zack either, as far as she could see. For a few minutes she remained where she was, lying on her belly in the grass, wondering what her next move should be. Then in the distance she heard a new sound – not a motorbike, but a much heavier vehicle, approaching at speed along the rutted dirt road that led into Banora from the south-west. She turned her head, listening carefully. The note of the engine was distinctive: Cissnei recognized it, even before she saw it, as a Shinra army transport lorry. Scrambling to her feet, she ran down the hill, vaulting over the giant pumpkins in her path, and reached the cover of the ruined manor house just before the truck came round the corner.

In front of her there was a staircase. She placed a foot on the bottom step, testing its sturdiness. It creaked a little, but held firm. Satisfied, she climbed to the second floor and took up a sniper's position at the window. From here she could see, to her right, the canvas-sided lorry, which had come to a halt and was disgorging a load of troopers over its tailgate. To her left, parked under a pawpaw tree, stood the bike, with Strife slumped in the sidecar. No Zack. No Genesis. Where had they gone? And why had Zack left his sick friend alone and defenceless? Tseng had told her to find Genesis, talk to Lazard, and keep the army off Zack's tail, but he had given her no orders regarding the boy. If the troopers wanted to take him, she could not stop them. Not all by herself.

A noise like a clap of thunder broke overhead. Something winged and terrible fell screeching out of the sky: light flared through her hiding place as the air outside became a storm of white energy and whirling feathers. _Shit, _she thought wildly, _a summons!_ and instinctively took a step backwards, throwing up an arm to shield her face.

But hang on - why would the troopers have called a summons against the helpless Strife?

And anyway, since when had Shinra started issuing their regular soldiers with summons materia?

Sub-machine guns began to spit bullets. Blinking the last of the dazzle from her eyes, Cissnei crouched down and peered over the windowsill, trying to work out exactly what was going on out there. The trouble was, what she saw made no sense.

Big white birds were mobbing Strife.

No – she could see now that one of them was Lazard. Where had _he_ been hiding? He was trying to pull Strife out of the side-car, arms tugging, wing flapping furiously. The other creature – the thing that had dropped from the sky - was shielding the two men with its body, absorbing the bullets that thudded into its flesh in a way her brain simply refused to process.

One thing was clear, though. Whatever it was, and wherever it had come from, that creature was on Zack's side. Those soldiers weren't here for Strife. Strife was nobody. They were here for the two First Classes, and possibly also for Lazard. And Tseng's orders about Zack and Genesis had been unambiguous.

Cissnei primed her pistol, chose a target, took aim, and fired.

.

The Turks' new phones did not store numbers, or take messages, or record calls missed or received or made. Should it come to the point where one or more of them were taken prisoner, Tseng wanted the phones to give away as little information as possible. Thus, when his new phone woke him from a shallow sleep - it was four o'clock in the afternoon; he'd put his head down for five minutes on one of the sofas in the lounge area – he had no way of knowing who was on the other end of the line until he answered it.

"Sir?" said Aviva's voice.

Remembering that she was on surveillance duty down in the church, Tseng immediately sat up. "What is it?"

"You know you said we should call you if anything strange happened? I'm not sure if this counts, but – that white thing, in the rafters? It's gone."

_ Zack,_ thought Tseng. _He's in trouble_. "Gone where, Veev?"

"I don't know, sir. It's just – not here."

"Which direction did it take? North? South?"

"I don't know, sir. It was gone when I got here."

"Have you asked Aerith?"

"She's not here either, sir."

Fear reached out to him, brushed its clammy hands over him. "Then _find_ her," he ordered. "Go to her house and see if Mrs Gainsborough knows where she is. If you can't find her that way, ask around in the market. Somebody will have seen her. I – "

_I'll be right there, _was what he wanted to say.

" – I'm sending Cavs and Mink down. Mink will wait in the church. Cavs can search Wall Market. I'll get Rude to search up here. You _find_ her, Veev, and when you find her, ask her how long ago the creature left, and where it went, and if she knows _why_ it went. Understood?"

"Understood, sir. I'm on it."

He called Cavour, called Mink, called Rude, gave them their orders.

_But if she's with the creature and they've left the city - _

No. They would find her. They had to find her. The alternative was not to be thought of.

Standing up, he found his legs tangled in a blanket. One of his subordinates had quietly put it over him while he slept.

.

In his office he made a call to Cissnei's phone. The number was unobtainable. Out of range? Switched off? In the hands of the enemy? Impossible to know.

He was staring at the phone in frustration when it jumped and shrilled in his hand. "Veev?" he demanded.

"No, it's me, Rosalind. You need to get down here, sir. Something's happening."

It was a long time since anyone had seen Tseng run. He covered the distance from his office to the floor between floors in less than thirty seconds. Rosalind was waiting for him, the earphones hooked around her neck. "There's some kind of skirmish going on," she said, "down in Mideel."

"When?"

"Just now, according to their despatcher in Junon. I've been trying to get on the ground troops' wavelength, but the band's narrow and they're jamming it. The best I can do is this channel from their HQ."

"What's the exact location?"

"I can't tell. The coordinates are coded."

"Has the enemy been identified?"

"They _say_ it's monsters. And sir – Heidegger's flown to Mideel."

"Do you think they've found our SOLDIERs?"

Rosalind nodded. "Their excitement level's gone through the roof. "

Tseng made a decision. "Carry on," he told her. "Keep listening. Call me if you find out anything else." Leaving Rosalind with the earphones clamped to her head, he returned to the main floor. Reno was in the kitchen, making a sandwich of cold sausages and mustard. "What's up?" he asked when he saw Tseng.

Tseng briefly explained the situation. "I'm going out now," he said. "I don't know how long for. While I'm gone, you're in charge."

.

Reeve Tuesti's spacious, stylish office occupied the entire south-east quadrant of the sixty-sixth floor. Jazz music played discretely in the background; Reeve had turned the volume down when Tseng came in. From where he stood on the far side of Reeve's desk (gleaming oiled wood the colour of a hazelnut, ergonomically curved, not a sharp corner anywhere) Tseng's view through the tinted windows was limited to towering clouds of gray-green reactor effluent, lit from beneath by the glow of the mako.

In the middle of Reeve's desk a little automaton sat watching them. By its ears and tail and its general shape Tseng could see that it was meant to be a cat, a kind of cartoon cat, a child's dressed-up toy made of tin bones, rubber-band sinews, fake fur, and glass eyes, as cold to the touch and as jerky in its movements as Rufus's cat was warm, fluid, and alive. Reeve had been tinkering with it when Tseng came in, and though he had set it down on his desk, he had forgotten to turn it off. It sat there listening, if listening was the right word, throughout their conversation, the ball-bearing articulation of its neck making a slight grating noise as its head swivelled from side to side, looking first at Tseng, then Reeve, then Tseng again with its lightless, unblinking eyes.

For his part, Reeve had stopped looking Tseng in the eye several minutes ago. Rising from his seat, he walked over to the window, and stood there with his hands in his beautifully-tailored pockets, his back turned to the Turk who had come to ask him for help. "No," he said, "I can't."

"I have no other means of getting there," said Tseng.

"You don't know for certain that the fighting's in Banora. Or that Zack Fair and Genesis are involved."

"Yon laddie wants us tae put our career on the line fer a hunch," said the robot cat, all the tiny working parts of its delicately engineered mouth moving in a freakish simulacrum of humanity.

"And even if you're right," Reeve added, "Fair is the army's legitimate target. Stay out of it, Tseng. This is not your business. And it's certainly not mine."

"Genesis is Turk business."

"Genesis is a psychopath," said the cat.

Tseng frowned. The way Reeve played with this toy was irritating him. He said, "Lazard is probably with them."

Reeve sighed, a deep, sincerely regretful exhalation of air. "I _can't_," he said again. "I'm under enough suspicion as it is. Scarlett's been making my life a living hell ever since I got back from Junon. They know you're here; they're watching me all the time now. I don't think I could organize a helicopter for you even if I wanted to."

"Gi'e it up, lad," said the cat. "The green blimp's got ye outmaneuvered on this one."

"They'll die if we don't do something," said Tseng, ignoring the robot and addressing himself to the back of Reeve's head.

"They'll die nae matter what ye do," the cat replied.

Tseng's jaw tightened. "If you're going to speak your mind to me, Director, you could at least use your own mouth."

Reeve turned round. Conflicting emotions pulled at the muscles of his face: fear, shame, resentment. "Tseng, believe me, I'm sorry. I – look, I made a mistake, getting myself involved with your department. I thought I could help, but I can't. I'm completely out of my depth here. I'm an engineer. Building things is what I know. I'm not cut out for all this intrigue." He hesitated. "If I could believe there was any hope at all, I'd… But there's nothing we can do. It's too late. Sometimes you just have to admit defeat."

Though his knuckles were aching to put a dent in Reeve's face – or rip his proxy's metal head from its furry shoulders - Tseng merely clenched his fists, nodded stiffly, and turned to go. It had been a long shot, anyway; he'd known all along that Reeve would prove an unreliable ally.

"Tseng, man," the cat called after him, "Try tae understand. We dinna want tae end up like the Legend."

Tseng stopped, and returned a couple of steps into the room. This time it was the cat to whom he addressed his words. "You can assure him there's little danger of that. Charlie was a brave man."

.

He would go to the civilian airfield and charter a private helicopter, he decided as he rode the elevator back to the forty-eighth floor. Change into street clothes first, use one of the false IDs, and hope nobody recognized him. Hunter would go with him – no, bad choice; she was a crack shot, talented with materia, and had nerves of steel, but she was never rational where Genesis was concerned. He'd take Rosalind, put Reno on the radio surveillance, leave Hunter to man the desk.

Just as he was stepping out of the elevator, his phone rang.

"Rude here," said the voice at the other end. "Found her."

Tseng missed his footing, and had to put a hand against the wall to steady himself. "Where?"

"Down here. Just outside."

"Outside _the building_?"

"She wants to see you, Boss."

For a moment Tseng felt dizzily as if the world were turning upside down. "_What?_ Why?"

"You want to talk to her?"

"No," said Tseng at once. _Not like this_, he thought, _voices at opposite ends of a phone. Not after so much has happened. _"Rude – ask her what she wants."

He pictured Rude turning his head, one gloved hand covering the phone's speaker. Their muffled voices could still be heard, though not the actual words: Rude's soft monotone bass, more of a rumble than an actual sound, and Aerith's higher notes, sharp with anxiety.

He would not go to the window. He would not look down.

"She says, is everything all right, Boss?"

So the flight of the monster had alarmed her too – alarmed her enough to bring her here, to the doorstep of the building she'd sworn she'd rather die than enter. Tseng wondered how long she had stood hesitating on the pavement outside, pushed on by one fear, pulled back by another, before Rude found her.

The elevator landing was not a safe place to be having this conversation. "Wait a moment," he said. Holding the phone against his jacket, he made his way to the corridor on the floor between floors. "Rude, did you ask her where the creature went?"

"She doesn't know. It was there when she went home last night."

"If she has any information, anything at all, she needs to share it with us. It could make a difference."

There was a short pause while Rude relayed this information. "She says difference to what?"

"Tell her lives are at stake."

This time the pause was much longer. Aerith evidently had plenty to say, because it couldn't be Rude doing all that talking. Finally he came back on the line.

"She says she can't tell us anything, Boss."

One half-truth for another, thought Tseng resignedly. What exactly had she been planning to say if she'd made it as far as his office? He'd never know now. "Get her away from here," he told Rude. "Take her home. Her house, the church, whichever she prefers. Tell her there's no cause for alarm, everything is under control. If something happens that she ought to know, I'll get a message to her. Tell her I promise." _For whatever that's worth to her._

Tseng put the phone back in his pocket and headed for his office, walking more slowly. He was no longer sure what his next move should be. The driving need to get a helicopter and fly to Banora had lost its urgency now that he knew Aerith was still in Midgar, safe under the eye of that brick wall Rude. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he realized what an impetuous, doomed-to-failure idea that plan had been. He'd gone running off to Reeve Tuesti like a panic-stricken rookie, without thinking of trying the official channels first. Shinra was not their enemy. _Scarlet_ was their enemy. If he started confusing the two, he'd be playing right into her hands.

And even if Reeve had been willing to organize transport for him, Banora was seven hours away. The fighting would be over long before he got there. Reeve was right, damn him: nothing they could do right now would help. The outcome of this battle was in Zack's hands. Tseng's opportunity would come later, when the battle was over.

Cissnei's silence was hardly a good sign, but she was a Turk; Tseng had to operate on the assumption that she could look after herself. Zack still had his sword, and had proved during his breakout from Nibelheim that he hadn't forgotten how to use it. He'd probably picked up some materia on his travels, too. The ground around Banora was littered with the stuff – naturally-occurring, and therefore not weapons-grade, but deadly enough in the hands of a First-Class SOLDIER. Zack should be more than a match for a single platoon of grunts. If Genesis were fighting at his side, the two of them could take on a whole battalion – always supposing, of course, that Cissnei was right, and that Zack hadn't killed Genesis first.

Now, if he could only get his hands on some transport, preferably of the authorised kind, and if Cissnei could get a little solid information through to him, he'd have the beginnings of something he could work with -

"Back already?" said Reno.

There had been a time, not even so long ago, when Tseng would have come into his office expecting to find Reno occupying his personal chair, booted feet up on his desk blotter, smoking a cigarette and flicking the ash into his bin. He still half-expected it. But they had been younger then. Now, Reno was sitting as a subordinate should, on the proper side of his Boss's desk, both feet firmly planted on the floor, a look of alert expectation on his face, waiting, hoping, for orders. His eyes tracked Tseng's movements across the room, and when Tseng sat down and reached for the phone, he made to get up and leave. Tseng gestured for him to stay, then dialed the number for the Old Man's PA.

"Wendy, can I speak to the President, please?"

Reno sat up, looking interested. The Old Man wasn't in his office today; he was spending the weekend playing golf on the links near Healen Lodge, and Tseng knew this; he'd given Skeeter the bodyguard assignment only the day before yesterday.

"Oh, that's right," Tseng said when Wendy reminded him, "I forgot. No, there's no need to trouble him in the middle of his game. Could you take a message for him? Tell him I've received a report of some sort of disturbance down in Mideel. It's probably nothing, but I think I'd better go and take a look. I'll leave the coordinates with Reno. If anything arises, refer to him. I should be back by tomorrow."

Without putting down the receiver, Tseng cut the call, and dialed the number for helicopter control.

"Mideel?" said the booker on the other end of the line. "There might be a delay… I don't know if we've got any choppers fuelled. Can you hold for a moment, sir?"

Tseng cradelled the receiver against his shoulder, and looked at Reno.

Reno, conscious, as Tseng was, of the listening devices inside the ventilation shaft, pressed his thin lips into a straight line and said nothing.

The booker came back on the line. "I'm sorry, sir, but we have no transport available for that destination at the moment."

In answer to Reno's questioning look, Tseng shook his head.

_Could have told you so, _Reno's eyes replied.

Tseng spoke into the phone. "Junon, then."

_Junon?_ Reno mouthed the question.

"That's an affirmative," said the booker. "We'll have it ready for you in twenty minutes. Warrant Officer Forbes will be your escort, sir."

Tseng put the phone down. "Come with me," he said to Reno.

Reno held his peace until they were safely on the floor between floors. "OK," he began, as they walked down the corridor towards the surveillance room, "So let's say, for the sake of argument, that the two of them manage to fight their way out of this. And let's say you manage to find them. Then what? That nutjob Rhapsodos isn't going to come quietly."

"Granted," said Tseng. "But I think Zack might be persuaded to strike a deal. If he helps us get what we want, we can arrange for him to have what he wants."

"Like what? Freedom? Safe haven? New identity?"

"Knowing Zack, if he bargains at all, it will be on behalf of his friend."

"Treatment for the sickie? That's what you're going to tempt him with?"

They had reached the door to the surveillance room. Tseng took his keycard from his pocket and swiped it through the reader. The door hissed open. Reno laid a hand on his arm. "Boss - What if he wants the Ancient?"

"Aerith is not negotiable." Tseng led the way into the room. "Roz, I need you to come with me to Junon. Reno will take over for you."

"Junon?" said Rosalind, surprised.

"That's as far as our lady in red'll let him go," Reno cut in before Tseng could answer. "_He _thinks he can finagle another chopper from somewhere once he gets to Junon and fly it under her radar. _I_ think the bitch said yes because she wants to keep him up in the air for as long as she possibly can."

"You're planning to go after Genesis, sir?" said Rosalind.

"Yes. You'll need a full set of mastered materia. Go get it."

"This is crazy," said Reno when Rosalind had left the room.

"I did not ask for your opinion."

"No, but you're gonna get it. OK, sure, if you can bring Genesis home you'll be the Old Man's blue-eyed boy for a while, but realistically, what are the odds? We don't even know if he'll still be alive by the time you get there - but if he is, it'll be because he and Fair have buddied up together. You and Roz'll have to take them both on, and – no offense, Boss, but you'd lose. And if you fail, then we are fucked. Him upstairs isn't going to forgive you if you come back empty-handed."

"Turks don't fail," said Tseng calmly.

"Pfft, don't give me that crap. You know what? I don't believe this is even about Genesis. We all know the world will be a better place once somebody finally puts a bullet between his crazy-ass eyes. You're doing this for Zack. Which means you're doing this for _her. _You think you can pull him out of this alive, don't you?"

"I haven't closed off the possibility."

Reno swiped a fist through the air, an angry gesture. "But you _paid_ our debt to him, Tseng. You gave him his chance. If he's screwed himself chasing after Genesis, that's his problem. We can't keep dropping everything to run off and save Aerith's boyfriend's butt. We don't owe Zack squat. We got AVALANCHE and the Chief to worry about. We…"

Tseng's unwavering look had finally succeeded in staunching the flow of words running from Reno's mouth.

Then Rosalind came in, armed and ready to go, and the sight of her set Reno off again. "Fine. If you're dead set on this, do it, but don't go yourself. There's no sense putting the bossman in the line of fire. Send Knox. He's down at Fort Condor anyway; Banora's just across the water. Get him to have a scout around. He could make it look legit."

Tseng had picked up the headphones. "I'll think about it," he said as he passed them to Reno. "Now, get working."

Reno pulled a hand down his face, as if trying to wipe away all the weariness, all the exasperation, all the fear. "Man, you are so fucking stubborn – "

"So I've been told. Let's go, Roz. Our transportation is waiting."

.

The Shinra troopers were retreating, and just in time; Cissnei was almost out of ammunition. They'd marked her position, of course - the wooden frame of her window was riddled with bullet holes, but she didn't think any of them had seen her face; she'd kept well back in the shadows, and the day was too bright. She watched the men who were still standing drag their dead and wounded comrades to the truck, climb inside, and drive away. Only when the sound of their engine had faded into the distance did she come downstairs to assess the damage.

The grass of the yard, soaked with blood, squelched under her feet. Handfuls of long wing-feathers had been trampled into the red mud. Lazard, or whoever, _what_ever, he was now, sat leaning hunched-over against the fence. Close by him the silvery-white thing – monster, angel, bolt from the blue – had fallen on its side, flanks heaving. Cissnei's gaze moved beyond them, down the hill, to the foot of the palm tree where Lazard had carried Strife when the fighting began. The boy hadn't moved at all. She wondered if he was aware that there had been a battle.

Lazard lifted his head and said something. She approached him warily, holding her gun by the muzzle, poised to use it as a blunt instrument if need be. The Director Lazard she remembered had been a man with soft hands, a desk-job kind of guy. A guy who, when given wings, used them to fly around the world trying to help his old enemies. _This_ Lazard broke necks with a single blow; she'd just seen him do it. Though he was still wearing his white gloves, she'd noticed.

When she came close enough for his eyes to focus on her, he laughed, or tried to; he didn't really have the strength. His voice was a dry whisper. "What was it we used to say? If trouble finds you, the Turks won't be far behind."

"Are you Lazard or are you Angeal?" she demanded.

He seemed to need to think about it. "Just Lazard," he said. "And not even that for much longer. No shuriken, Cissnei?"

"I'm back on the company payroll now. Bullets are more anonymous. "

She could see in his face that he understood what she meant. That reassured her. Lazard always been quick on the uptake.

It was time to call Tseng, let him know what had happened. When she took out her phone, Lazard shook his head. "Won't work," he said. "Too much mako radiation. You should get out of here while you can. Take Cloud with you."

"That's not my mission."

The ghost of the smile she remembered hovered round his mouth. "Have you come to bring me in? If so, you're wasting your time. I can't hold this body together as far as Midgar."

"Tseng sent me. He wants to know where you found that materia."

"What materia?"

"The one you gave me last week in Gongaga."

"Let me think." He closed his eyes.

Cissnei looked him over. The decay had grown considerably worse in just eight days. His face was white and grey in patches. The wing growing out of his left shoulder gave a sharp little jerk with every breath he took, and the feathers trembled as if a breeze were passing through them, though the air was hot and still. His upper left arm had been wounded; the shot had passed right through his flesh, leaving a hole as big as her thumb. There was another bullet-hole in his shoulder, and two more in the wing, all oozing an oily-green, viscous slime that evaporated when it came into contact with the air, leaving behind a residue of shiny smudges, like snail-tracks, on his feathers and his clothes.

Cissnei shuddered. She'd slept with this man, when he _was_ a man; she'd lain in those arms when they still had blood in their veins. In those days Lazard had looked poised to inherit, if not the earth, at least a good half of it, and now he was this – this -

She put her hand over her mouth and looked away.

"I can't remember," he said.

"It's important. Try harder. Please."

He shook his head. "I'm sorry. My mind's a blank. It's all going now."

"What about Zack? Where is he?"

Lazard moved his hand in the direction of the sinkhole. Her eyes widened. The levels of concentrated mako at the bottom of that hole would be enough to drop a diceratops stone dead. SOLDIERs, hardened by repeated exposure, might survive it, but she couldn't follow them in there.

Lazard was slipping sideways. Cissnei dropped to her knees and caught him in her arms; his head fell against her shoulder. "Would Cure help?" she asked.

"Don't waste it."

"Does it hurt? Can I get you something? Water?"

"Water would be nice."

"I'll see what I can find."

The well had vanished along with the rest of the village. She went to check the ruined manor house. By the sink in the kitchen there was a rusty pump; a little elbow grease soon got it working. The water it coughed out was the colour of green tea and definitely contaminated, but that would make no difference to Lazard. On the floor of the larder she found a fine bone china teacup with a broken handle. She filled this with water, and carried it carefully in both hands to the dying man, holding it to his lips to let him drink. All he wanted was a few sips. Cissnei poured what was left into the grass, then sat down beside him, wedging her body firmly against his and allowing him to lean on her. He weighed almost nothing. It was as if he were made entirely of feathers, and would blow away if she didn't hold on to him. She put an arm around his shoulders. Lazard smiled.

For a while he rested quietly against her. Then he roused himself to say, "There's no telling when the army will be back. You should get going."

"What about you?"

"No good. I'm finished, like that fellow there."

Cissnei looked over at the creature. It was barely breathing.

She calculated that they had, at best, two hours before the soldiers returned, and that was only if the reinforcements were coming all the way from the barracks in Mideel Town. At worst, they might come any minute. Taking Lazard's chin in her hand, she turned his face so that he was looking into her eyes. She wanted to be sure he understood what she was about to say. "Director - before they come, do you want me to kill you?"

Lazard made a sound like someone swallowing air. She thought he was choking, but he was laughing – laughing at her. "Is that how they say 'I love you' in the Department of Administrative Research?"

The joke was an old one, the mockery gentle, the jester a dying man. Yet it stung. Did he really think, after all these years, that taking life meant so little to her – to them? That it was something they did thoughtlessly? The deaths of those troopers, the two she'd been forced to kill, were not a matter of indifference to her. They weighed on her conscience, because they need not have happened. If the decision-makers in the Company had kept the army out of it, and let her department handle this business, no one would have needed to die. Lazard was beyond saving, it was true. But he had done that to himself.

She told him straight, "I've only ever loved two men, and neither of them was you. I'm simply offering to do you a favour."

The effort of laughing had taken the last of his strength. "Save your bullets," he whispered. "It won't – be long now." He leaned against her, all his attention focused on drawing the next breath. Cissnei shifted a little to make his head more comfortable on her shoulder. As she did so, the edge of her hand brushed against something unexpectedly soft, and with a start she realised she'd touched his wing. Her first instinct was to recoil, but after a few moments curiosity got the better of her, and her fingers crept back to steal another touch.

_Wings symbolize freedom to those who have none._

She'd said that. The words had just popped into her head; she hadn't meant anything by them, and certainly hadn't believed they were true. In those days, if someone had asked her to describe the symbols of freedom, she'd have said a gun and a sharp suit and a look of respect in the eyes of strangers: that, sir, was freedom. But the wings-as-metaphor line had sounded intelligent – deep - and Zack had been looking so disgusted, so… disillusioned; she'd been desperate for something to take that look off his face.

Now she wondered if the words might not hold some truth after all. "What did you want to be free from, I wonder?" she murmured, smoothing Lazard's feathers with the back of her hand.

"Bitterness," he replied.

She hadn't realised he could hear her. "And are you?" she asked after a moment.

"I dedicated my whole life to destroying my father's company, and I can't even remember why, any more. Why was my anger so important? It's all gone now. The only thing that really seems to matter any more is saving _his_ life," Lazard gestured toward the bottom of the hill, where Private Strife lay, "And the lives of my men. A life saved – that's something tangible."

" 'Whoever saves a life, it is as if he saved an entire world,'" Cissnei quoted. "Rest here, Director. I'll go bring him up."

Private Strife was heavy; he had all the substance Lazard lacked, and it was hard work bringing his inert body up the hill. Yet Zack had been carrying him for months. Under the tree in the yard of the Rhapsodos manor stood a wooden kitchen chair. Cissnei placed Strife on it, adjusting his position until she was sure he would stay upright. Lazard, meanwhile, had struggled to his feet and staggered over to them. She helped him to sit down, leaning his shoulders against the chair.

"There are so many things I wish I'd done," he told her.

"I've done so many things I wish I could undo," she replied.

"Then you have probably led a more productive life than I. Or at the very least, left some small mark on the world to show that you passed through it."

"I betrayed someone I loved for the sake of someone who didn't love me."

"Love," Lazard sighed, closing his eyes, as if it exhausted him merely to think about it. "_That_'s what I regret the most. Believing I had no time for love. That other things – " he paused for breath – "required my attention first. But nothing else matters, does it? When all's said and done."

Cissnei crouched down beside him. His features were pinched, sharpened. The eyeballs had sunk in their sockets. Putty-coloured lips no longer closed over too-prominent teeth. Cissnei knew that look. Lazard was out of time.

There was nothing more she could do for them. She didn't want to get caught in the open by the army, and she didn't want to encounter Zack until she understood how the land lay between him and Genesis. "Director?" she said softly. Lazard didn't respond. She tried again, a little louder. "Director? Will you do something for me? Don't let on to Zack that I was here." Feeling that something more ceremonial in the way of a farewell was called for, she leaned forward and kissed his clammy forehead. "You fought well," she said, "Be at peace," and began to stand up.

Lazard's fingers closed round her wrist, pulling her down on her knees beside him. "Cissnei," he whispered hoarsely, "tell Rufus – not to get too complacent - now I'm gone."

His hand fell from hers, and his head dropped forward. For a little while she remained kneeling beside him, watching him breathe. Then she got to her feet and took a look at Private Strife. He had not moved a muscle all this time. Almost certainly he was brain damaged beyond hope of repair. _So many people are trying to save you_, she thought, _but you're already gone, aren't you? You're just not there._

Back inside the ruins of the Rhapsodos manor, Cissnei took up her position at the window and checked her ammunition. Six bullets. That should be enough to do the job, if Zack didn't come soon. One bullet straight between Strife's eyes, another just to the north of Lazard's right ear. Should she do it now? She couldn't afford to wait much longer. Those soldiers would be back any moment, and if they caught her it wouldn't be just her neck in the noose: it would be Tseng's, and the whole department –

Footsteps, crunching on gravel. Heavy boots. Long strides. One pair of feet; one man. He was coming from the direction of the sinkhole. Cissnei crouched down into the shadows.

Zack came round the corner, carrying Genesis over his shoulder. He stopped when he saw Strife and Lazard. An absurd look crossed his face – like that of a parent who'd gone out on some important business and returned home to find the kids had trashed the house. Against her will, Cissnei's heart began to beat faster.

She watched him set Genesis down carefully against Strife's chair, then turn to ask Lazard what had happened. He startled when Lazard lifted a hand to point out the white thing, and let out a sob before covering his mouth. Seeing this, Cissnei understood that the monster was somehow dear to him. Lazard's hand fell. Zack ran over to him, knelt down, then bowed his head and punched the ground.

Now what would he do? There wasn't room for two in that sidecar. Cissnei briefly considered making herself known, before deciding against it. Zack's options were limited, but he had brought Genesis alive out of the mako hole and that meant something. She didn't think he would willingly yield his fellow SOLDIER to the Turks.

Instead of leaving, though, Zack walked over to the apple arbor and picked three apples off the ground. Why the hell was he wasting time like this? It was all she could do not to shout from the window _run, fuckwit, get out of here before they come back! _He gave an apple to Genesis and another to Strife, keeping one for himself, apparently in some kind of ritual, since Genesis looked no more capable of eating his than Strife did. Zack took a bite, and said something to Genesis.

Suddenly, Lazard's body wasn't there. It had dissolved, leaving a swirl of green fog behind, like Reno stubbing a cigarette out, smoke and ash flying upwards. Zack stared so hard the set of his shoulders practically shouted: _what the hell?_ In another moment the other monster's body was gone too, leaving behind a piece of paper. She watched Zack pick it up and read it, saw the apple fall from his hand.

"Four years?" he shouted at the sky.

_Oh god, _she realised, _he didn't know. _

How could he not have known?

Why hadn't she told him? She should have told him –

He folded the letter and tucked it inside his shirt, against his heart, confirming Cissnei's suspicions. Who but the Ancient would have thought to use a white-and-gold monster as her personal delivery service?

The letter had galvanized him. He moved purposefully now: picking up Strife's limp body and throwing it over his shoulder; nodding at Genesis, his lips moving with words she couldn't quite hear. He settled Strife into the sidecar, straddled the bike, kicked the engine to life, and drove away in a cloud of yellow dust, while Cissnei, crouched in the shadows, watched him go.

It wasn't the hardest thing she'd ever done.

For a little while she lost track of time, but eventually, when the dust had settled on the road, and the creak of the windmill and the hum of the wasps were once again the only sounds, she turned her attention back to Genesis. From the look of him he wasn't going anywhere in a hurry. Still, the odds were he had a summons or two up his sleeve, and as long as he was conscious Cissnei intended to keep a safe distance. Getting to her feet, she shook the numbness from her legs and set off towards the grove where her chocobo was tethered. If she rode beyond the next hill, she could probably get a signal. She'd call Tseng. Together, they could figure out what to do.

She was fitting her foot into the stirrup when she heard, from far away, the sound of a helicopter approaching.

* * *

"So that's it, then," said Rosalind, handing Tseng a coffee. "The army's taken him."

The two of them were standing on the balcony of Charlie's old office in Junon. To the west, the sun was setting. On the floor of the room behind them a cell phone lay scattered in pieces. Tseng had thrown it against the wall when Cissnei gave him the news.

He was calm now. "Another nail in our coffin," he said.

"Come on, sir, that doesn't sound like you."

"If we're not useful, Roz, we're nothing."

"Fair got away," she reminded him.

"I doubt the President would construe that as useful."

"No, but he _is_ the army's target, and they've let him slip through their fingers again. We did our best, but our hands were tied. If Director Scarlet hadn't been so obstructive… If she'd let us do our job, and deal with our own targets, the army could have done theirs. Wouldn't you say, sir?"

Tseng turned to face her. She saw that she'd made him smile. It wasn't much of a smile, tight-lipped and weary, but still, it counted. These days, seeing Tseng smile was about as rare a sight as a glimpse of blue sky over Midgar. Rosalind felt the satisfaction tingling all the way down to her toes.

"I might well say," he told her.

"Do you think it'll cut the mustard?"

"That will depend entirely on the President's mood."

They finished their coffees in silence. The sun slowly melted into the ocean, turning its waters to gold. Rosalind was reminded of days long gone by: a desk at a window looking out onto this same view, the red glow of evening colouring the pages of her textbooks, her baby sister napping in her cot. A restless sleeper, Elena had been, waking every few hours. Twelve-year-old Rosalind had volunteered to do the night feeds so that their sick mother could rest. She'd looked forward to the quiet times the two of them spent together, she and her brand-new sister; she'd loved the silence of the sleeping house, the warmth of the baby's solid body nestling in her arms, the rhythmic sounds of hungry sucking. Such a cuddly, pretty baby, her own little living doll, her Laney.

Where was that baby now? She'd dropped out of the academy with only weeks to go till graduation, and had disappeared from the house they jointly owned in Junon – their inheritance - without telling anyone where she was going or what she planned to do. A phone call, or an email, even a line of text, would have been _something_, proof that Laney was capable, at least once in a blue moon, of showing some consideration for the feelings of others.

Reno, whose ear Rosalind had been bending, told her she worried too much. Could it be true? Was _she_ the problem? Had she been stifling Laney? Reno said he thought she needed to learn to let go. Her baby sister was a big girl now, old enough to take of herself. Was that what Laney was trying to prove? That she could stand on her own two feet? She _did_ have a right to make her own choices, Rosalind reluctantly supposed, even if they were incredibly stupid ones…

"We'd better start heading back," said Tseng.

"Let me clean up that phone – "

"No," he said. "I'll do it. It was childish of me."

They swept it up together, putting the pieces into an envelope taken from Charlie's desk drawer. Tseng slid the envelope in his breast pocket and got to his feet. The daylight was almost gone. Still kneeling on the floor, dustpan and brush in hand, Rosalind looked up and asked him, "Do you think Ciss is right? Fair's heading for Midgar?"

"I have no reason to doubt it," said Tseng absently, looking out the window at the darkening sky. Half his mind was on something else; Rosalind was sure he was thinking about the Ancient.

"But it would be so foolish," she said.

"Men have been known to do foolish things. Here, give me those." He took the dustpan and brush, and held out his other hand to help her up. Rosalind got to her feet, dusted off her knees, straightened her jacket across her shoulders. Then she looked her boss straight in the eye – which wasn't something she felt entirely comfortable doing, despite all the years they'd known each other – and asked, "Tseng, does Reno know that Cissnei's back on active duty?"

He hesitated before answering. "No. Not yet."

"You are going to tell him, aren't you?"

"Yes, of course."

"It's not like you to procrastinate, sir."

"No." Once again Tseng sounded as if his thoughts had wandered elsewhere. "Sorry - I mean, yes, you're right, Roz. I will tell him tomorrow. If I still have a job by then, that is."

Rosalind giggled, and then wondered if she should have. It was always so hard to tell when people were joking.

* * *

_Author's Note:_

_Posted at Starbucks on the Gran Via in Madrid!_

_._

_I was uncertain whether the Turks' arrangement with the scratch card cell phones would actually work as a means of circumventing security/phone hacking. Then, the other day, I was watching a documentary on al-Jazeera about the human rights activists who tried to break the Israeli sea blockade of Gaza, and those activists apparently used exactly the same system while building their boats and coordinating their action. So maybe I have a future in counter-espionage after all!_

_._

_Thank you all for reading and for your kind reviews, which are always much appreciated._


	50. The Corner of Your Eye

**Chapter 50: SOME OBJECTS SEEM CLEARER WHEN VIEWED FROM THE CORNER OF YOUR EYE  
**_**In which Tseng debriefs Skeeter on his golfing weekend, the President throws down a gauntlet, and Reno put his Boss straight on several important points**_

* * *

Tseng and Rosalind had little to say to each other as they flew back to Midgar. Each was absorbed in their own thoughts. Tseng was still struggling to come to terms with the loss of Genesis and all that that failure entailed. The army had stolen his department's target, making them look incompetent. From Scarlet's perspective, the blow thus struck against the Turks easily outweighed any loss of face suffered by Heidegger's men as a result of allowing their own target to escape. At the end of the day, Public Safety had something to show for their efforts, something to set in the credit column against the cost of fuel consumed and man-hours expended. Administrative Research had nothing. Excuses were for losers. Only results mattered.

The hands of the clock were inching towards midnight by the time their wasted journey finally came to an end. As soon as they climbed out of the helicopter Tseng dismissed Rosalind, telling her to go get some rest. He took the lift to the 48th floor, where he found Hunter, more asleep than awake, dutifully manning the desk. She gave him his phone messages. The only one of any importance was the first one, the one from the President, informing him that he was expected to attend an emergency board meeting in seven hours time. Tseng scanned the other messages, put them all in the wastepaper bin, and asked her where Reno had got to. She told him that he'd stayed in the surveillance room until they'd heard the news about Genesis; then he'd gone off somewhere with Rude. Tseng was glad to hear it. He didn't feel up to dealing with the weight of guilt that Reno's mere presence evoked in him, nor the unspoken _I-told-you-so's_ he would inevitably read in Reno's eyes.

"Is Skeeter back?" he asked.

"He's around somewhere," Hunter replied, failing to hide a huge yawn behind her sleeve. Her bloodshot eyes were overbright; even her ponytail had lost its perkiness. Tseng told her she was done for the day, and sent her off to get some sleep.

A white noise in the background, which had been humming annoyingly at the edges of his awareness all the time he had been talking to Hunter, now claimed his full attention. He walked down the corridor to the lounge area and saw that the television had been left on. Transmissions had ended for the day; there was nothing on the screen but a Shinra logo test card. A soured sweetness hung in the air, the smell of beer mixed with bhang and loco weed. All the ashtrays were immaculately, suspiciously, clean, but several bottles that had been left under the table were crammed with waterlogged (_beer-logged? Was that a word?)_ butts and roaches.

Tseng did not object to the drinking: it was an ancient departmental right. The drugs, though, were pushing it too far. If ever he'd needed proof that drugs and Turk business should not mix on company time, he'd found it here, in their failure to thoroughly dispose of the evidence. Tseng allowed himself an inward sigh, picked up the remote, and turned the television off.

From somewhere not far away came a sound like a drain unclogging: an open-mouthed, deep-throated, rip-snorting snore. Tseng proceeded to investigate. Behind one of the banquettes he found Skeeter fast asleep, curled up on the floor like a ferret, hands tucked over his eyes and mouth agape, drooling into the carpet. He was still wearing his golf clothes.

If Tseng had had a hard day, Skeeter's weekend at Healen had probably been no picnic either. He was good at golf; in fact, a passion for the game was something he and the President had in common. At one point in his pre-Turk existence he'd worked for a while as a junior pro at one of the resort courses along the Costan coast, a job he'd liked but had had to leave in a hurry after killing the boss's brother, not entirely on purpose, with the man's own niblick. "I was defending my virtue," he'd explained to Tseng and Veld, and when they'd looked into it they'd found that it wasn't a lie: the murdered man had had his hand deep in the company till, and when exposure loomed he had threatened to frame Skeeter. Skeeter had clubbed him over the head in a panic, then fled. Three weeks later, broke, hungry, and desperate, with nowhere left to run, he'd tried to rob the bank in Costa del Sol, only to be foiled by Reno, and thus his new life with Shinra's Department of Administrative Research had begun.

In the early days of his Turk career, Skeeter's amiability had almost been his downfall. He'd let anybody buy him a drink. Veld had had his work cut out teaching him the art of turning a deaf ear to desperate pleas. On more than one occasion in that first year he had hesitated when he should have pulled the trigger, and twice only the quick thinking of his partners – Rude the first time, Rosalind the second – had brought them both home alive. Gradually, however, as he matured into the job, he came to understand that while he couldn't befriend everybody (the world being what it was), there was nothing wrong with pretending to do so, and from that point on the quality that had been his weakness became his greatest asset. Skeeter had a way with people, a knack for getting them to open up to him. His candid blue eyes guaranteed he could be trusted; his ready smile invited confessions. He was, after Tseng, the department's most effective interrogator, and he rarely had to resort to Tseng's methods in order to get at the truth.

Even the Old Man warmed to Skeeter. Whenever he needed a bodyguard for one of the intimate social events to which only his close friends were invited, it was always Skeeter he asked for. The others liked to rag him about this favouritism; 'Captain Flunkey', 'Ball Boy' and 'the male escort service' were just a few of the nicknames they threw his way. Skeeter replied with a shrug, and laughingly called their bluff - "Hey, are you saying you want this job? Please, be my guest." He knew perfectly well that not one of them would have volunteered to switch places with him. Taking a bullet for the President was a sacrifice they were all prepared to make. Spending a whole weekend hanging out with the Old Man, caddying his clubs, laughing at his jokes, stroking his ego, making small talk with his friends, and shouldering the blame for every fluffed shot, every lost ball… No, they'd definitely choose the bullet. Much less painful. They didn't know how Skeeter could stand it.

"Wake up," said Tseng, shaking the young Turk's shoulder. Skeeter muttered and turned over onto his other side. Tseng shook him again, and called his name. This time Skeeter opened his eyes. "Hey, hi, sir." He was still half-stoned; that famous smile kept growing wider and wider, gold tooth glinting, eyes blinking, dazed and slow. "Back from Junon already?"

Reprimands could wait. "Debriefing," said Tseng, "Now. Get up off the floor. I'll bring you some coffee."

He returned from the kitchen with two cups, both black, one heavily sugared, as well as a chocolate bar commandeered from Aviva's stash in the fridge. Skeeter tore off the wrapping and ate it greedily. When he was done, Tseng handed him his sweetened coffee, and sat down on the opposite sofa. "So," he began, "how did it go?"

"Oh, you know, sir. Fine, same as always. He won both his games so he's dead chuffed about that. I helped him pick the right club for a couple of trickey shots, and twice I toed the ball in off the rough when nobody was looking. Or maybe three times," Skeeter giggled. "You know, he's actually not half bad, sir. He still jerks his chin when he swings, though. He swears blind he doesn't, but I can _see_ him taking his eye off the ball every time. It drives me nuts. He could improve his handicap by two or three points if he'd just learn to keep his head steady."

"What kind of mood is he in?"

Skeeter searched for the right word. His eyes hadn't completely lost their glazed look, but the chocolate and the caffeine were helping. "Mellow," he decided. "Yeah, definitely mellow." He paused. "Hunt told me you had a pretty busy day here. Did anyone die?"

_Lazard. Or what was left of him_. "The army sustained some casualties. Do you have anything else to report?"

Skeeter thought for a moment. "Well, yeah, there is something. Last night in the clubhouse one of the golf wives whispered in my ear there's a rumour going round that the Vice-President is… well, that he's dead, sir, and we're covering it up."

This came as no surprise to Tseng. The passing years had worn too many holes in their official story; a dead Rufus was easier to believe in than a never-ending business trip to nowhere. "What did you tell her?"

"Well, first, I told her I'd seen him with my own eyes just the other day. But she wasn't buying it. She was like, 'you would say that, wouldn't you? If he's alive, why doesn't anybody ever see him?' So I gave her the Wutai story. I said he was in this monastery studying the language, and they didn't allow any contact with the outside world. 'Except for you guys,' she said. And I said 'well yeah, we gotta keep an eye on him, obviously'. And she said she was glad to hear it. Then her tone kind of got more hush-hush and serious and she said she didn't see what use being able to speak Wuteng would be for running his daddy's company, and she thought it all sounded a bit fishy; if it was her kid she said she'd be really worried. She told me she'd heard those monasteries in Wutai were as bad as cults. They get their claws into kids, rich kids, and they never let go. And then – this is the interesting bit, Boss – she told me that her sister-in-law had lost her daughter to – " Skeeter's fingers hooked air quotes – " 'One of those Cosmo Canyon cults'."

"Avalanche?"

Skeeter nodded. "That's what she said. It's kind of a sad story. The family's broken up over it. Only child, smart girl, scooped all the science prizes at her school. Pretty, too. She showed me a picture."

"Name?"

"Jessica Arroyo."

"When did they last have contact with her?"

"Almost two years ago, she said."

Two years, Tseng reflected, was a long time. Fuhito's operatives had a short life expectancy. This lead would probably go nowhere. The girl was probably dead. Still, it was worth following up on. "Look into it," he said. "Talk to her family, friends, the usual. Tell them that if we find her we can get her out. And tell them we promise her immunity."

"Can we do that, sir?"

"Strictly speaking, no, but if she isn't in too deep, and if she makes herself useful to us, then yes, it might be possible."

Skeeter glanced up at the clock. "You want me to start now –" A cavernous yawn swallowed the end of his question.

Tseng's eyes followed Skeeter's. Nearly one a.m. "What I want," he said, "Is for you to take yourself upstairs to the rec floor, sign in for a bed, get a decent night's sleep, and show up here at seven properly showered, dressed and ready for work. But before you go, give me the rest of what you've got in your pockets. You know what I'm talking about."

Skeeter's eyes darted rapidly from side to side, but there was no way out. "Damn," he grinned, trying the effect of his charm instead. "Busted."

Tseng was unmoved. Resignedly, Skeeter dug into his back trouser pocket and pulled out a cube of tinfoil. "That's all that's left, sir," he said.

"Who else was here?"

"Me, Tys, Cavs, Hunter," Skeet answered promptly. Honesty compelled him to add, "Hunter didn't take anything because she was working. She was just sitting talking with us. It was mostly me and Tys."

Tseng said, "Listen to me carefully. If I ever find out that you've been taking drugs while you're with the President, or during any assignment, no matter how trivial you may think it is, I will do more than bust you. They make you stupid and they make you careless."

"But we were off…" Skeeter faltered under Tseng's steady gaze - "duty, sir."

"You know better than to bring it into the building. Possession of recreational drugs on company premises is a dismissable offense. We don't fire people in this department, but occasionally in the past it's become necessary to let someone go. A stupid, careless Turk who leaves the evidence of his stupidity lying around for all to see is no use to me. Is that clear?"

Skeeter had turned very pale. "Yes, sir. Sorry."

"I'm not interested in sorry. It shouldn't have happened. It will never happen again. Clean up your mess now, and then go get some sleep. We'll talk about disciplinary action tomorrow. You can expect it to be unpleasant."

As he flushed the contents of the tin-foil down the toilet, Tseng suffered a moment of uncertainty. Had been too harsh on Skeeter? A whole weekend spent dancing attendance on the Old Man would be enough to make anyone want to flee from reality the moment the pressure was lifted. Why bother to enforce the rules so strictly, when there was no guarantee any of them would still be alive this time tomorrow? They were young still. Why not let them have their fun?

_Because when you give up trying, you're as good as dead._

It was true Skeeter had been off-duty, which mitigated the offense somewhat. But if Tseng did not come down on them hard now, it wouldn't be long before they were resorting to drink and drugs to help them handle the pressure during missions, and then they would die, one way or another. Turning a blind eye to petty infractions was the first step on the slippery slope to anarchy and disintegration - and therefore, as long as Tseng led this department, rules would be enforced, reports would continue to be properly filled out, and ties would remained tied, even if the world came down around their ears.

Except for Reno's tie, of course. Standards were important, but one had to be realistic.

* * *

The Board meeting began predictably enough. Scarlet immediately went on the attack, accusing the Turks of complicity in Zack Fair's escape. She had a long list of charges against them. Some contained a grain of truth, but it was all conjecture on her part; she had no proof to bring to the table, only circumstantial evidence. Glancing down to his right – for Tseng was never offered a seat at board meetings, and always stood by his employer's side as he had once stood at Veld's shoulder - he met the President's eye, reading in it an order to keep his mouth shut. The Old Man only smiled like that when he was plotting something.

Waving a hand, The President cut Scarlet off in mid-sentence. "My dear," he said benignly, "I think you're forgetting that I was the one who gave my Turks the order to track down Genesis. "

_So we're __his__ Turks today_, thought Tseng. _Tomorrow – well, god knows._

"There were no operatives from Administrative Research in the vicinity of Banora yesterday," the Old Man added. "That's right, isn't it, Tseng?"

"Yes, sir." _Only a part-time proofreader from the Marketing Department, her name down on the payroll as Cicely Naylor._

"Too bad," said the Old Man. "If there had been, Zack Fair might not have found it so easy to slip through our fingers. You people – " his beady eye swept round the room – "Sit at my table here and take my money. Is it too much to ask you to put aside your differences and cooperate from time to time?"

Scarlet's mouth was drawn in a tight line, cheeks flushed with the effort of biting her tongue. Heidegger was looking at her as if weighing something up in his mind; Tseng got the sense that all was not well in their alliance. No commander liked to see his men wasted.

"Well?" said the Old Man.

Thin-lipped, Scarlet replied, "No, sir."

The President beamed at her. "That's the spirit. There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to greatness – "

"What's that from?" Palmer broke off from eating his croissant to ask.

"It's _Loveless_, you uncultured buffoon," hissed Scarlet. "And if you ever talk in front of me with your mouth full again, so help me god, I'll shoot you."

"Seconded," Reeve murmured to himself.

"Now then, now then," said the President in the same genial tones, like a schoolmaster lecturing a roomful of small boys. "The trick is all in the timing. You have to know when to catch the wave – and know when the time has come to jump off it again. The Jenova Project's a failure. We need to cut our losses and move on. Genesis has been decommissioned…"

Tseng wondered what that meant. Dead? Or returned to the Science Department? Half-remembered phrases from meetings long past came into his mind: 'organ harvest'… 'tissue reclamation'… and, most ominously, 'the experiment has moved on to the next phase – '

"It's time to close the files on Genesis. I want you to burn them, Tseng. While you're at it, burn everything we've got on the other two as well."

"What about the documents in Nibelheim, sir?"

"I'll be taking care of those," said Hojo.

No one else seemed inclined to speak. An uncomfortable silence fell over the boardroom. Reeve doodled compulsively, head down, his pencil making itchy little rasps as it filled the paper with rapid sketches. Scarlet was fuming. Hojo smiled to himself, adjusting his glasses. Heidegger scratched his chin through his beard. Palmer swallowed the last mouthful of croissant, and licked the flakes of pastry from his lips.

So many of the chairs in this room were empty.

The Old Man reached for his glass of water and took a sip. The sound of the liquid moving down his throat was almost painfully loud.

_His son died yesterday_, thought Tseng, a_nd he doesn't know. And I can't tell him. _

There had been grief when Lazard defected, a private process of mourning shared with nobody but Veld. There had also been hope: hope that his son would return with a rational explanation for his actions; hope that forgiveness was a possibility. Tseng couldn't say when that hope had died. For all he knew, it was still alive.

President Shinra set his empty glass down and rubbed his hands together. "So,' he said, looking round the table, "Gentlemen. Scarlet. What are we going to do about our remaining rogue SOLDIER? Hmm? Or let me rephrase that – " He fixed Heidegger with his gimlet eye. "What are _you_ intending to do, Field Marshall? You had Zack Fair within your grasp yesterday – one man against an entire army – and he got away. He _got away_. He's making a mockery of you, my friend. Do you intend to take that lying down?"

Heidegger's cheeks reddened. He brayed a nervous laugh. "Gyah-ha, certainly not – "

"Damn right you won't. And do you know why? Because it's not good enough. Not. Good. Enough. We can't have all these deserters and escaped specimens lollygagging around the planet wherever they damn well please. It makes us look sloppy. And I don't think any of us want to see a repeat of what happened with Sephiroth. Do we? Hmm? Another Nibelheim would set us back years, financially. With all these new projects in the pipeline – "

"If we put more geopositioning satellites into space, we could tag him with a tracking device," said Palmer excitedly.

Reeve covered his face with his hand. Everyone else ignored Palmer's outburst.

"Am I making myself clear, Field Marshall?" demanded the Old Man. "I need this problem sorted. We'll do whatever it takes." He twisted round in his chair to look up at his Chief Turk. "Tseng, the army bagged your target, so now I'm going to give you a piece of their action. See if your team can beat them to it. Show me what kind of job the Turks can make of retrieving the Professor's runaways, and try not to take another half a year over it."

Tseng had been wondering when the real reason for his presence at this meeting would be revealed. He'd been braced for almost anything, though admittedly he hadn't anticipated _this._ "Yes, sir," he replied automatically, while his gaze flicked round the table, trying to gauge the executives' reactions. Reeve was astonished, so astonished that he put down his pencil and raised his head to stare at Tseng. It was the first time since the meeting began that he'd looked at Tseng directly. His unguarded eyes gave too much away; Tseng was careful to avoid them.

Hojo seemed to be miles away, daydreaming about something else. Palmer's face was gleeful. Scarlet's glare of disgust encompassed every man in the room.

Heidegger pushed back his chair and stood up. His movements were clumsy, due to the bulkiness of his greatcoat and his own girth, but once he was on his feet there was a certain dignity, a substantialness, in the way he stood with his legs planted firmly apart, shoulders squared and chin up. Tseng was reminded that he had been a real soldier, once.

"Sir," said Heidegger, "With all due respect, if you want Public Safety to co-operate with the Turks – "

"No, no, no," said the President, smiling. "Heiders, my old friend, you need to clean the wax out of your ears occasionally. Cooperation seems to be a dirty word round this table, so what I'm proposing instead is a contest: your army versus my Turks. Your men can handle a little competition, can't they? A little friendly rivalry, to get that old adrenaline pumping? Hmm?"

Here he turned his head to look up at Tseng. The smile stretching wider and wider across the President's face put Tseng in mind of a swollen Bomb, a Bomb on the verge of exploding. "I'm confident my Turks can rise to the challenge. Tseng knows exactly what I expect of him, don't you, Tseng? He won't let me down. So here's the bottom line, Heidegger: either your army, or my Turks, are going to find my missing First Class and bring him back to me, dead or alive. And may the best team win."

The Old Man sat back in his chair, allowing the other board members a moment in which to digest his words before adding, "If that doesn't motivate them, I'm buggered if I know what will."

.

"Let me just check that I'm getting this straight, Boss," said Reno an hour later. "Him upstairs has decided it's some kind of _game_ now?"

"You do make it sound as if we're in a race," Rosalind added.

"Yes," said Tseng. "That's exactly what it is."

He, Rosalind, Rude and Reno were sitting at their customary table at the Sector One station coffee shop, chairs pulled in tight and heads so close together that the smoke Reno breathed out went up everybody else's nose. Rosalind coughed, but was too absorbed by Tseng's news to do more than wave a hand in absent-minded irritation.

"Clever, though," said Rude

Everyone turned to look at him.

"Of the Old Man. To bring it out in the open," he clarified.

"Talk about your friggin' blood sports," said Reno, crushing out his cigarette. "Ten to one on the Dogs of the Shinra; any takers?" He had already pulled another Bahamut from the packet. Striking a match on the sole of his shoe, he lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply.

"What are we going to do?" Rosalind asked Tseng.

"I haven't yet decided."

"But surely we're not going to let Hojo have him again?"

"Our orders are to bring him back dead or alive."

"So it'll be a mercy killing," said Reno. "Our speciality. Great. It just goes to show…."

His words tailed away. Curls of smoke escaped from his nostrils.

"What?" said Rosalind. "What does it go to show? Reno?"

"That the Chief was always right."

This was not a sentiment Tseng had ever heard Reno express in the days when the Commander was among them. Reno had feared Veld, and respected him, as they all did, and had usually obeyed him, though never unthinkingly; he'd understood that the Chief was human, that he could and did make mistakes just like any other man. This myth of the infallible Commander was something new. It had only taken root after Veld had left them, and with each year that passed their belief in it seemed to grow deeper and more sincere. Tseng wondered if it was the kind of myth that Veld would have considered useful.

"Oh, there's our friend," said Rosalind. "I though it was about time for him to show up."

Three tables away, Scarlet's spy had sat down and was taking his newspaper out of his briefcase. Tseng eyed him balefully. "I'm not in the mood for him right now," he said. "Reno – "

Reno grinned and shot out his arm so that the elbow joint cracked, the EMR sliding smoothly into the palm of his hand. Tseng only just grabbed his wrist in time. "What are you, stupid?" he whispered furiously. "Do you want to bring every grunt in the sector down on our heads? Rosalind, here – " He took a small envelope from his inside pocket and passed it over to her. She nodded, and rose to her feet. The rod had vanished back up Reno's sleeve. He was scowling. Was he sulking because he'd been denied the chance to play with his toy? Or… was he upset that Tseng had thoughtlessly called him stupid?

_Shouldn't have done that._

Tseng felt Rosalind touch his arm. "No time like the present," she said, leaning meaningfully on each word. "Rude, why don't you come give me a hand?"

Rude looked Tseng's way for confirmation. Tseng, in turn, glanced up at Rosalind, who quickly rolled her eyes in Reno's direction and pulled a face that meant, _you remember what we talked about? _None of this passed Reno by unnoticed. His lip curled, and he took out yet another cigarette, lighting it off the end of the old one.

"Go with her," Tseng told Rude.

Reno didn't wait for them to get out of ear-shot. "She's about as subtle as a brick through a window, that Roz," he said, pitching his voice to make sure that she heard, before transferring his attention to Tseng. "Relax, Boss. I know about Cissnei. She's down in Mideel, right?"

"How did you know?"

"Simple deduction. You had to have someone tailing Zack, and all the rest of us were accounted for. Guess I'm not so stupid after all, huh?" Sitting up straighter, Reno leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. "And I'll tell you something else I've figured out. She was in Gongaga, wasn't she? You saw her when you went down there."

Tseng inclined his head. "If you recall, I told you, months ago, that she still had a mission to complete."

"Is that where the Chief sent her? Is that where she's been all these years?"

"Yes."

"Shit. That must have been hard for her. God, he was a hard bastard. What's she doing now?"

"Heading north, after Zack."

Reno's face gave nothing away. He looked, if anything, as if the whole topic rather bored him: his eyes were half-closed, his mouth bent to its customary line of wry cynicism that might, or might not, reflect what was really going in inside. Tseng knew him too well to presume to guess.

Still, he couldn't help glancing at Reno's hands. Hands often revealed what a man's words strove to conceal. Reno's hands were unnaturally still. The cigarette he had lit earlier was burning down between his fingers, dropping ash on the tablecloth. He seemed to have forgotten it was there.

"So how is she, Boss?" he asked. "She O.K.?"

"Considering the circumstances, I'd say she's quite impressive. As good as ever."

"The suit still fits, huh?"

"You know what they say."

A real smile creased the corners of Reno's eyes. "Yeah. So… when can we expect to see her back in the office?"

"That depends -"

Suddenly Reno wasn't looking at him any more; he was looking past him, at something going on behind Tseng's back. Tseng turned in his chair to see. The waitress had brought her tray to the spy's table and was setting out his coffee, his sandwich, and a gingham napkin. He handed her a bank-note. She put it in the pocket of her apron, and with a last lingering glance at Reno went back inside, where Rosalind's slender outline, and Rude's bulkier form, could be seen through the window, standing at the counter.

"Depends on what?" asked Reno.

"On a number of factors."

"Like me, you mean?"

A cracking thump interrupted Tseng before he could answer. Once again he turned around. Newspaper Man lay sprawled face-down on the pavement, his chair tipped over beside him. The sight gave Tseng a disproportionate satisfaction.

"Shameful," tsked a woman passing by. "Drunk, at this hour."

In the open doorway of the shop the waitress stood looking frightened and bewildered. Her gaze moved from the customer out cold on the ground to the Turks at their table, and her look of fear intensified. Tseng beckoned for her to come over. Reluctantly she obeyed, twisting her apron in her hands.

"I don't suppose," he began, reaching into his pocket for his wallet as he spoke, "That you could take our man there into the back of the shop and let him sleep it off? Lying there for everyone to see, he's an embarrassment to the company." He held up a hundred gil note. "You understand."

She couldn't take her eyes off the money. "Uh. S-sure. I guess."

"Good girl." He tucked the note into her hand. "Those two will help you." Rude and Rosalind had already heaved the man off the ground, their hands hooked under his knees and armpits. His limp body swung in their grasp. Tseng lingered a moment to enjoy the sight of his two Turks manhandling Scarlet's unconscious spy through the coffee house door, and then once more returned his attention to Reno.

But Reno wasn't ready for him. Tseng had moved too fast, catching his subordinate unawares, and for just one moment he was given a glimpse of what Reno's face looked like when he thought no one was looking. It was a face that Reno himself probably didn't recognize, when it leapt out at him without warning from random shop windows, or a passing car's side-mirror, as he was walking along thinking about something else, its sudden manifestation stopping him in his tracks to wonder, as Tseng was wondering now: _do I know you?_

_ Oh yes – it's me._

For that one split second Tseng saw Reno in himself, himself in Reno, and suddenly everything became clear and he understood, for the first time, completely and with absolutely certainty, the thing that Reno never could or would explain: the reason for the scars tattooed on his face –

Then Reno sighed, and as he sighed his face settled back into its familiar lines; Tseng's moment of insight vanished, leaving him with nothing but a vague sense of déjà vue and the uneasy feeling that _something_, he couldn't remember what, had been mislaid.

"OK, Boss, look," said Reno, "I'm being straight with you now. This pussyfooting round me every time Ciss's name gets mentioned is starting to piss me off. I'm really getting tired of being treated like I'm the problem. That business was done and dusted years ago. I'd like it if we could all just move on now. As far as I'm concerned, I have no problem with Ciss coming back to the office. I'll have no problems working with her. She's a great Turk. We need her. I dunno – what else can I say?"

Tseng wasn't fully convinced; he still thought the hands told a different story. However, if this was how Reno wanted to play it, then it would be easier all round if he played along. "It's not just you," he said. "Though I appreciate your frankness. There are other factors that need to be taken into consideration. With the rest of us being so closely watched, Cissnei's anonymity is invaluable to us right now. She can move freely wherever I need her to go. Bringing her back to the office would compromise that status."

"Didn't Tuesti meet her when he went to Gongaga with you?"

"Unfortunately. He's a potential leak, and I'm not sure how far I trust him, if at all, but for the time being he seems to have decided to keep what he knows to himself. He didn't say anything this morning when Scarlet was accusing me of having Zack followed – "

Reno snorted, "That's because you're even scarier than she is."

"Ah. Well, thank you." Tseng coughed softly. "At any rate… right now Cissnei is the ace up our sleeve, and I want to protect her anonymity for as long as I can."

"So for now she's going to keep following Zack?"

"We don't know where he is. She lost his trail after he left Banora. She's trying to pick it up."

"But you said she's heading north. You think he's coming to Midgar?"

"We're pretty certain of it, yes."

"Hmm." Reno screwed his mouth up to one side, looking thoughtful. "Even a bonehead like Fair has got to realize that coming anywhere near Midgar would be the equivalent of sticking his head in a noose. So what's he after? You think he's coming for the Ancient?"

"I have reason to believe that that's the case."

Reno's smile faded. "Seriously, you're kidding me, right?"

"I wish I were."

The tables had turned: Tseng's face was now the one being closely scrutinized. And Reno could go for a long time without blinking.

"So, Boss," he said at last, "What are we going to do?"

"Aerith's safety is paramount. The company has a significant investment in her future."

"Yeah, right," said Reno. "The company. Comes first every time."

"I'm hoping Cissnei can find him and persuade him to turn back."

"Right, because Mister Indestrucible always listens to reason. You know what I think, Boss? To hell with it. We're not his goddamned bodyguards. If he hasn't got the sense to stay out of harm's way, then let Hojo have him. He deserves it for being such a twat. Yeah – I'm right, and you know it. You're just too twisted to admit it."

"Twisted?"

"You know." Reno held up a hand and waggled his fingers. "Round a certain flower-girl's little pinkie. That chick is so full of crap, boss. When are you going to wake up and see it?" Putting on a falsetto voice, Reno fluttered his eye lashes and trilled, "'Oh yes, normal is best. At least, _I_ think so. Because I'm totally one hundred per cent normal. I'm the normallest girl you'll ever meet, there's nothing unusual about me, no sir. That man in the blue suit? Oh my, I've no idea who he is; I've never seen him before in my life.' Hey, c'mon, Boss," he added in his own voice, "I'm doing my best here. You could throw me a bone at least."

"Not funny," said Tseng.

"No. It isn't, is it? Fuck it," Reno flung himself back in his chair, "Nothing's fun any more. Where the fuck did my fun go, huh? Is there somewhere I can register a complaint? I'm so bloody sick of being so deadly serious all the time. Don't you ever get sick of it, Boss?"

Tseng was saved from the need to answer by the return of Rude and Rosalind. Rude was holding a phone number scribbled on a post-it note; he handed this to Reno, who, without looking at it, scrunched it into a ball and put it in his pocket. Tseng tucked a generous tip – another hundred gil note – under his saucer. "Let's get going," he said.

"Hunh," said Rude.

"Bit of a waste then, wasn't it?" said Rosalind. "That Dream powder."

Tseng thought of the satisfying _thunk_ Scarlet's spy had made as he hit the pavement, and smiled a little. "Not really."

The four of them walked back to the Shinra building. On the way, Reno nipped into a shop to get more cigarettes. They were all out of his favourite Bahamuts, so he bought a packet of Malboros instead. "Aptly named," said Rosalind, "since they're poisoning you."

"I love you for caring, I just want you to know that," he replied, pinching off the filter and lighting up.

As they passed through the mezzanine floor to catch the elevator, Rude pointed out a group of attractive young women sitting around one of the tables – job candidates, judging by their anxious, hopeful air and the resumes clutched in their manicured hands. What made it hard for the Turks to tear their eyes away was the fact that the five women were so alike they could have been sisters – tall, slim, busty, blonde, blue-eyed quintuplets.

"Palmer's hiring again," Rude observed.

The lift doors opened. "Scarlet should just let him have his wicked way with her, and give the poor sod some closure," Reno quipped as they stepped inside. "That's your explanation for his rocket obsession right there."

"But with those older models, failure to launch can be a recurring problem," said Rosalind primly. Her sly smile darted from Rude, to Tseng, to Reno. All three of them stared at her.

Reno burst out laughing – a noise of pure delight, the first Tseng had heard from him in a long time. "Roz-a-lind!" he crowed. "You bad girl! Looks like there's hope for you yet…."

The five blond job applicants turned their heads as one, in time to see the lift doors closing on his laughter.

* * *

_Sorry for the delay. I've been trying get a few chapters ahead, to keep everything coherent.  
Whether you review, favourite, alert, or read - thank you. _


	51. A Broken Pinball Machine

**CHAPTER 51: SOME DRAGON LEATHER, A BOMB, AND A BROKEN PINBALL MACHINE  
****In which Rufus makes progress, Reno doesn't, and AVALANCHE strikes again**

* * *

"I have news," said Tseng to Rufus as soon as they were alone together.

"Can't it wait?" Stretching out on the sofa, he laid his head in Tseng's lap and smiled up at him. "It's been three days since I saw you. I'm in the mood for your undivided attention."

"Rufus, Lazard is dead."

The smile faded. A stillness fell upon the room.

"Well," said Rufus. "I can't say I'm sorry."

"No," Tseng agreed.

"Or surprised. You told me last week that he was dying."

"His death was expected. But the way it happened… was not."

"Tell me," said Rufus.

Tseng gave Rufus his second-hand account, omitting nothing of what Cissnei had told him. When he came to end, Rufus asked, "Does my father know?"

"About the rest, of course. But if I were to tell him about your brother's death, it would be tantamount to admitting our presence there. He - "

"Don't call him that," interrupted Rufus. "Lazard and I were never brothers in any meaningful sense of the word. He was my father's other son, that's all. Frankly, I was glad to see the back of him when he left, and I'm relieved to hear that he's finally dead. He disliked and resented me, Tseng; you know that. And I - I barely knew him. We hardly spoke outside of board meetings. My old man was pretty strict about keeping the two of us apart." Rufus laughed, and added, "Maybe he was afraid that if we became too friendly we'd join forces against him."

To himself Tseng acknowledged that this was more than likely. Veld's influence, too, had probably had something to do with it. The Turk Commander had seen the promise latent in Rufus (difficult, capricious, intermittently brilliant boy, such a chip off the old block) long before any else had; in Lazard, by contrast, he had seen nothing but a threat to that promised future: a loose thread perpetually in danger of unravelling; a man promoted, for sentimental reasons, beyond what the strength of his character could bear. In other words, right from the start Veld had operated on the assumption Lazard was poisonous.

Might-have-beens were futile; still, Tseng couldn't help wondering how many lives might have taken a different course had Veld been willing to give Lazard a chance. Veld, of course, would say it was not their job to take chances, and of course he would be right. Events had proved him right. There had always been something fundamentally un-Shinra about Lazard, a man who wanted to be good but, like his friend Reeve, could not work out how to achieve this relatively simple ambition without compromising his power in this world. He should have stayed with the bank. He'd have been better off there.

Rufus had turned his head so that his nose was pressed against Tseng's shirt. Only one blue eye was visible, oscillating slightly as it followed the shadows of the thoughts passing across Tseng's face. "Our enemy's enemy rarely makes for a reliable friend," Tseng told him. "Lazard trusted the wrong people. He allowed his emotions to cloud his judgement."

"And unluckily for him," Rufus smiled, "he didn't have a Tseng to teach him the error of his ways before it was too late." As he spoke, he slid two fingers between the lowest buttons on Tseng's shirt; his fingertips were cool against the warmth of Tseng's stomach, and the touch of his breath was like a feather.

Desire stirred, but Tseng was still in charge, and he hadn't finished what he needed to say. Catching Rufus by the wrist, he pushed his hand away and said, "Don't. Don't be flippant. No death is ever a laughing matter. Whatever mistakes Lazard made, he paid for them. And he died well."

"Thus achieving redemption," Rufus intoned with mock solemnity. "So perhaps we should call his a happy ending and leave it at that. And I wasn't being flippant. I said I was lucky, and I meant it. If it weren't for you, I'd probably be dead. I know that. So don't call me flippant."

"Stop that," said Tseng, trapping his other hand.

"It's been _three days_. Can I help it if I'm glad to see you?"

"Sit up, Rufus. I'm not done yet."

"Tseng – "

"I mean it. Now sit up."

"Like a good boy," Rufus grumbled, hauling himself off Tseng and onto his favourite perch on the arm of the sofa. "What more can there be?"

"Skeeter was out with your father at Healen all weekend. According to one of the women he talked to, there's a rumour going around town that you're dead."

Rufus needed a moment for this to sink in. When it did, he burst out into delighted laughter, and laughed so hard for so long that tears came to his eyes; laughed so infectiously that Tseng, against his better judgement, broke into a smile, although he didn't think it was funny at all, and didn't entirely like the note of Rufus's laughter, either. There was something strained about it.

"Really?" Rufus gasped. "That's priceless."

"It's serious, Rufus. More so even than Lazard's death."

"Oh, stop!" Rufus cried as if Tseng was tickling him. "What's that line – how does it go? 'To lose one son may be considered a misfortune; to lose two – " he paused for effect – "looks like carelessness."

"I'm sure that's not right," Tseng murmured, fighting a twitch in the corners of his mouth.

"What a shame you can't tell them the truth. 'Vice-President Rufus Shinra: not dead, merely buried'."

"This isn't something to laugh about."

"But you're laughing yourself," Rufus pointed out; and Tseng could not deny it. Rufus, spotting an opportunity – for Tseng, to emphasise his earnestness, had perched on the edge of his seat – now made a move, launching himself along the top of the sofa to slide in behind the Turk's back. This time, Tseng did not push him away. Rufus's arms wrapped round his chest; Rufus's knees hugged his thighs, and Rufus's chin came to rest on his shoulder. Tseng's smile widened. "That's better," said Rufus. "For a moment there I was afraid you'd lost your taste for delicious irony, old man."

"You can laugh all you like," said Tseng. "It won't solve the problem. This isn't the kind of rumour mockery can kill."

"Then fight fire with fire," Rufus urged him. "Let's start spreading some rumours of our own. The more the merrier. You could say I've run away to become a chocobo jockey… Or I've caught a disfiguring disease, or – or tell them I'm serving incognito as a SOLDIER third class. Actually," Rufus added on a more serious note, "I'd have quite liked that."

"Are you trying to teach me my job?" Tseng's words were stern, but his tone was amused, and the weight of his hand, which had come up to caress the back of that ragged blond head, was gentle. "We've been circulating rumours of our own for several years now. But this rumour's too believable. The further it spreads, the more it makes all the others look like the cover-ups they are. I suspect Scarlet may be behind it."

"Of course you do. You see her hand in everything."

"But you must see how it serves her interests. If enough people begin to believe you're dead, your father will be forced to bring you out of hiding simply in order to prove there _is_ no cover-up."

"But would that really be such a bad thing?" Rufus wondered, laying his cheek against Tseng's. "I'd give almost anything to see daylight again. To hear something other than the beat of those reactors. Traffic. People. Voices…. Life. I've almost forgotten what it sounds like."

"The timing's bad. Too many people want you out of the way, and we're not in a position to guarantee your safety. You'd be at constant risk of assassination – and blackmail, as long as Fuhito's alive."

"Yes, but on the other hand, bringing me out into the open might flush Fuhito from his cover. You might get a clean shot at him at last. It could even work to our advantage. I can always tell my father I need a stuffy old Turk in my suite at night – " he laughed softly in Tseng's ear, and slid a hand down the front of Tseng's trousers – "to watch over me."

Tseng gave him a half-hearted push and rose to his feet. "Stop it –"

"No. You stop it," Rufus replied, springing up after him and returning the push, propelling them both in the direction of the bedroom. "Stop thinking about work. All these people - Lazard – Scarlet - Fuhito – my old man… Why can't you leave them up top where they belong? I'm tired of them intruding on our time together. When you're with me, the only person you should be thinking about is _me,_ and what _I_ want. Is that understood?"

Rufus's fingers were tugging at his tie. Tseng's own hands had become preoccupied with waistcoat buckles; he was thinking about how fiddly these were, and how the brush of Rufus' lips on the skin at the corner of his mouth made that whole side of his face tingle, and about the constancy of desire, when he heard himself say, "Yes, sir."

Rufus froze.

Tseng was almost equally startled. He hadn't intended to say it; hadn't been trying to make a joke. The phrase had uttered itself spontaneously, on a reflex, a deeply-entrenched, instinctive response to some inflection in the timbre of Rufus's voice.

Next moment he felt Rufus's palms slam into his chest, and found himself being shoved backwards onto the bed. He had no will to resist. Rufus knelt over him, straddling his waist, and leaned forward until his eyes, stormy, angry – _mistrustful_ – were a nose-length away from Tseng's own. "Never, ever call me that again," he exclaimed. "Not _ever_. Do you hear me?" and giving Tseng no chance to reply stopped his mouth with a hurried, clumsy kiss, as if afraid that those two little words, with all they implied, would refuse to be so easily suppressed.

Making love was simpler than talking. There could be no misunderstanding when skin spoke directly to skin. Nevertheless it seemed to Tseng, as he lay awake thinking afterwards, that even their love-making was becoming tainted with procrastination; he was starting to treat the sex like a drug, a temporary escape from reality. It solved nothing, and when it was over, nothing had changed.

He lay on his side, naked back pressed against the cold wall, holding Rufus in his arms. A quietness had fallen on the room. Rufus was so relaxed, his breathing so shallow, that Tseng thought he must be asleep - until he felt, rather than heard, lips shaping his own name against his bare shoulder.

"What is it?" he whispered.

"All this time…Do you think my father's been waiting for Lazard? Do you think that's the real reason I'm here?"

This idea had never occurred to Tseng before. He considered it now, briefly, only to dismiss it. "No," he said. "Look at the facts. You're the one he chose to be Vice-President. After Lazard was promoted to Director, people began to talk. That's why your father put you on the Board, even though you were so young. To make it clear you were his heir."

"Heirs… can be disinherited."

"I've never heard him even hint at such a thing. I don't believe he ever considered it. This company is your father's life's work, Rufus. Lazard tried to destroy it. You tried to take it. I think he knows which of you value it more." Pressing a kiss to the nape of Rufus's neck, which suddenly seemed to him unbearably vulnerable, Tseng added, "If Lazard had been the son he wanted, he would never have had you."

Rufus said, "It was my mother," and smiled; Tseng felt it in his skin.

He waited, but Rufus did not finish the thought. Sleep had overtaken him, as it so often did, with his eyes still half-open. He looked completely drained. It wasn't just the sex. Even in sleep his face had the feverish pallor of someone utterly exhausted. Tseng wondered if Rufus slept much at all when he wasn't there.

_This can't go on._

Stroking the damp hair back from Rufus's brow, Tseng came to a decision. _As soon as this business with Zack is finished, I'll do it. I'll tell him._

Soon. But soon wasn't yet; soon wasn't this moment.

The end couldn't be far off. A week at most; probably less.

As time ran out, a week felt like eternity. A single day could stretch to last a lifetime.

_ It won't come as any real surprise to him, I think. He likes to indulge in his fantasies, but he understands that's all they can ever be. He knows the real world is waiting for him; he's growing impatient to return._

If Cissnei could catch up with Zack, persuade him to turn around; if Zack could accept the inevitability of a life spent in hiding, a life without Aerith –

If he really loved her, he'd understand that he needed to let her go.

Plan B amounted to this: Tseng would deliver the letters, and Zack would be allowed to read them, all eighty-eight of them, before he died.

.

BY four o'clock in the morning only three customers remained in the bar of Seventh Heaven: a whore who'd just knocked off for the night and was enjoying a quiet drink before going home, and the two Turks at the table in the corner. Reno and Rude had been playing cards earlier, and had then whiled away some time arguing the respective merits of Shinra's latest motorbike designs, and speculating on the sexual proclivities of the various women in the room - or rather, Reno had given his imagination free reign, and Rude had appeared to listen. But the women were all gone now, except for the whore and the barmaid, and Reno had sunk into his own thoughts. He knew Rude would be happy to sit here till dawn watching Twin Turbines scrub her counter, bending and twisting in that tight leather skirt. The view was a fine one; Reno would be the last man to deny it. But it wasn't enough to distract him.

"S'funny," he said.

"What?" said Rude

"You know, when I think how much I used to want to kill that gung-ho twat Fair. Being ordered to… It takes all the satisfaction out of it. Weird."

"It may not come to that," Rude rumbled.

"Yeah, it will."

"She'll find him."

"He'll just steamroller right on through her."

From upstairs came the wail of a child crying out in its sleep. The barmaid put down her wet cloth, threw an uneasy glance at the two Turks, and left the room. Reno turned to Rude.

"She's got a kid?" he asked.

Rude shrugged.

"She doesn't look like she had a kid," Reno added thoughtfully. "I've never seen abs on a girl with that much definition. Not even Veev. Where does she work out?"

Rude shrugged again.

"Man," cried Reno in exasperation, "Don't you talk to her at all? You know, this coy silence thing used to be kind of cute, but now it's getting embarrassing. Just because a couple of chicks screwed you over is no reason to lose your nerve completely. I'm seriously starting to question your manhood, partner."

The look of long-suffering patience on Rude's face told Reno he was wasting his breath. He decided to change the topic. "Hey," he said. "That pinball machine. Any good?"

"Never played it."

"I'm gonna give it a try. Gimme five gil."

With Rude's coin in his hand, Reno strolled over to take a look at the machine. It was an older model: 'Volcano Quest'. He thought he could probably beat the high score. His fingers were itching to try those paddles –

"Don't!" cried a voice behind him.

Reno glanced over his shoulder. Twin Turbines was standing in the doorway, face white like she'd just seen a ghost.

"What's your problem, sister?" he asked, turning back to the machine, the coin between his thumb and forefinger poised to enter the slot.

"Please don't! It – it's broken. Don't waste your money."

Reno turned to consider her more closely. She really was amazingly hot, especially now with those magnificent tits heaving up and down and her eyes all big and round and a bit scared and her soft mouth slightly open. Damn Rude for seeing her first.

"I could fix it for you," he suggested. "I'm good with my hands."

He'd never have pegged her for the type to blush, or to take offense at a little flirtatious innuendo - but those sweet cheeks reddened as if he'd slapped her, and that was definitely a blaze of anger in her big brown eyes.

"I wouldn't dream of imposing on my patrons," she said.

Why was she was looking at him like he'd just offered to take her out in the alley and rape her? Yeah, sure, his department weren't exactly famous for being saints, but he'd done _nothing_ here – nothing but volunteer, out of the kindness of his heart, to repair her broken bloody pinball machine so she could make some goddamn money out of it. Was that a fucking crime? The bar looked like it was strapped for cash, and it wasn't as if he and Rude had anything else to do or anywhere else to go for the next hour. Stubbornly he felt the urge growing in him to insist on fixing the damn thing.

"It's very late, gentlemen," she said, "I should have closed up an hour ago."

She had an accent, Reno realised. A faint one. He couldn't place it. Sexy voice; breathy. And full of hate. Yeah, he recognized _that_ accent all right.

"It's too late to be late," he informed her, "Which means it's early."

He could see in her eyes that she knew she shouldn't answer him back; she feared provoking them, hated them and feared them and wanted them out of her bar, but she couldn't stop herself; he read this in her face, just before she said, "Don't you have homes to go to?"

"We're going," said Rude, standing up.

"Going where?" exclaimed Reno.

"Home," said Rude.

"But the trains aren't running yet. I'm not taking the stairs."

Rude took hold of him by the elbow. "She's closing up. Let's go."

"I don't want to go – "

Tightening his grip on Reno's elbow, Rude propelled him out the door and down the steps. The door slammed shut behind them. Reno heard the bolt slide home. Huh - if that chick thought a bolt was all it took then she didn't know what she was dealing with. Shaking Rude off, he brushed imaginary fingerprints from his sleeve and said, "You know you're not impressing anybody with that legendary hero crap. Face it: she can't stand the sight of us. Didn't you see her eyes?"

"You were picking a fight with her," said Rude calmly.

"What? I was _trying_ to help her. Man, what is it with you and this fatal attraction for chicks who hate you? I mean, seriously, do you ever think you maybe might have a problem with that?"

"I'm going to wait in the train," was all Rude said in reply. He began to walk away.

"The first step to conquering your problem is to admit you have one!" Reno called after him.

Rude kept trudging steadily, silently onwards, and after a minute or so Reno set off in pursuit. _The truth hurts_, he thought. Maybe he should just drop it for now.

The dawn train was standing at the platform; the station master, in his long crimson coat and peaked cap, was already at work, making a manual safety check of the signals as he did every morning. He unlocked the executive carriage and let the Turks inside. Strictly speaking, they had no place being there, but who was going to challenge them? The executive carriages ran empty ninety-nine point nine percent of the time. Reno put up the armrests on a row of seats and stretched himself out full length. Rude did the same on the other side.

"I've slept on worse," said Reno.

"Mmn," said Rude.

"You know there's a guy who lives on this train."

"Mmn."

"Gotta be a pretty easy life. No responsibilities. No worries. Wonder how he eats, though. When was the last time he washed his underpants? Does he ever take a shower?"

"He gets off," said Rude, "And uses the station washroom."

A short silence ensued. Reno remembered something he'd been meaning to ask. "Rude?"

"Mmn?"

"You given any more thought to what I told you about the V.P.?"

Rude was a long time answering. At last he said in his deep rumble, "Tseng told you to leave that alone."

"Yeah, but what's he doing about it?"

"That's his business."

Abruptly Reno sat up. "I don't buy that," he said, and his voice was harder, colder. "I think it's all our business. We've got a shitstorm of trouble heading our way. We need to be united. We can't afford any weak links."

"You're making assumptions," said Rude – which was a big thing for him to say, not so much because he'd said a lot as because he was making clear to Reno that there was a lot he _could_ say on the topic, if he felt so inclined.

"Spit it," said Reno.

"What if you're wrong?"

Reno bristled. "Do you think I'm an idiot? I can tell when a guy's getting some. And when he isn't," he added pointedly.

"Hunh. Okay. Suppose you're right. Still. The V.P.'s only human."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It doesn't have to be a conspiracy," said Rude.

"Rufus, Rude! Rufus Shinra!"

"He's entitled to a private life."

"I can't believe I'm hearing this," Reno cried. "Are we talking about the little shit's _feelings_ now?"

"I'm talking about human nature." Rude paused. "Caring about someone besides himself. Could be good for him."

"What the hell is wrong with you? You're starting to sound like Veev."

Rude gave him a long look, and said slowly, "Be careful. You're starting to sound like a bitch."

"What?" Reno jumped to his feet, every nerve in his body fizzling with frustrated aggression. "You want to say that again, _partner_?"

"You heard me."

"Just what the fuck is your problem, Rude?"

"I'm not the one with the problem."

"Are you saying I have a problem?"

"Going round picking fights with everyone?" said Rude. "Yeah, I'd say you have a problem. "

Reno sucked air between his teeth, a long hissing sound. "Oh, right – _I_ have a problem. You're damn right I have a problem. My _partner's_ my fucking problem. He's so busy fapping over some big-tits barmaid he's never even spoken to because she's so out of his league she wouldn't look at him twice that he can't spare five fucking minutes to help me figure out which of our trusted co-workers is knocking boots with the mindfucking shitstirring little git who tried to get us all _killed_."

He had to pause for breath at that point.

Rude, maddeningly calm, replied, "Stop living in the past."

"What!"

"That shit with Rufus was years ago. He's grown up. You're the only one who can't see it. If we live, one day he'll be our boss. Why do you want to make an enemy out of him?"

_You got that backwards_, thought Reno furiously. _The little shit's the one who made an enemy out of __me__._

He was about to say so, when his phone rang - his official phone. He flipped it open. _"_What?" he demanded.

"Don't take that tone with me, Reno," said Rosalind on the other end of the line. "Listen, there's been an explosion down in the Sector Eight slums. The target was the Shinra accounts office in B Ward. Avalanche are claiming responsibility. Where are you?" And when Reno told her, she said, "Okay, you're closest, so you'd better get yourselves over there."

"Does the Boss know?"

"I'm calling him now."

.

Sleep had taken a long time to find Tseng that the ringing of his phone woke him, he felt as if he were dragging himself up from the depths of the ocean to answer it. Rosalind had to repeat her message twice before he fully grasped what she was saying.

"I'm on my way," he told her. Remembering where he was, he asked, "Who's coming to relieve me?"

"Skeeter, sir. He just set off from the building now."

Which meant a half hour wait, at least, before he reached the bunker, and that was only if he didn't run into any monsters or Shinra personnel that he needed to avoid.

Tseng told her, "Let the President know I'll be there as soon as I can," and closed his phone.

"Emergency?" said Rufus from the depth of the bed.

"Avalanche, apparently."

There was a short pause; then Rufus said, "You should go. You don't want my father asking questions."

"I can't go and leave you…"

"Unguarded?" Rufus suggested.

"I was going to say 'unprotected'."

Rufus pushed back the covers and sat up. His ragged hair stood up in all directions. Pink pillow-creases striped his flushed cheeks. Refreshed by sleep, his eyes were as clear as a baby's. He said, "You could leave me one of your guns."

It was as if he had read Tseng's mind.

He made it sound so simple. The obvious thing to do. "Let me get dressed," Tseng replied.

Rufus lay down again, his sleepy-lidded eyes watching Tseng move around the room, quietly dressing himself with the same economy of movement that characterized all his actions. Tseng felt those eyes on him, and knew that Rufus was waiting to say something. He opened the locker in which he'd stashed his weapons, took out his holsters, his two Quicksilver revolvers, and his materia. When he turned around, Rufus began to speak:

"You don't have any idea how much I hate being reliant on other people for my protection, do you? It's your job; it's the way things have always been. You don't stop to think about it from my point of view. I'm twenty-two years old, Tseng – I'm a _man_, not a little girl. I admit I'm not up to Turk standards, but I'm hardly helpless. I know how to cast materia. I'm not going to shoot myself in the foot if you give me a gun. You made me learn these skills. Why did you bother, if you don't trust me enough to give me a chance to prove myself?"

Recognising the question as rhetorical, Tseng did not try to answer. Rufus paused, took a breath, and went on, "Veld did a good job with this hideout, but sooner or later somebody is going to find it. Every time one of you comes or goes, the odds of discovery increase. Maybe I'll be lucky and it will be one of our own reactor technicians. If I'm unlucky, it will be Avalanche. I don't expect that any of your subordinates would willingly throw themselves in front of a bullet for me… And even if they would, I don't like the idea of relying on human shields for my defense. Humans shields whose names I know. That seems – like something a coward would do. I _need_ to be able to protect myself. Can you understand that?"

Tseng stood in the middle of the room, weighing a laden holster in each hand. They were, of their kind, beautiful objects: dark dragon leather, very expensive, black with a sheen of blue, impregnated with immunity to a range of the deadlier status effects. He had received them from Commander Veld as a gift to mark the beginning of his seventh year as a Turk. Veld hadn't been in the habit of giving presents, to Tseng or anyone else; Tseng had no birthday that they knew of, and the Commander wasn't a man who set much store by anniversaries anyway. Very occasionally, though, he'd found an excuse to give Tseng something he knew the young man had set his heart on.

Years of exposure to Tseng's body heat had molded the leather of the holsters to the contours of his frame. There was a deep crease in the strap where he habitually fastened the buckle; Rufus would have to tighten it another notch across his narrower chest. Because the holsters had been custom-made, each contained three materia slots. One held only a low-level Cure that Tseng was working on. The other was fully loaded with a mastered Restore, a mastered Destruct, and a mastered Ice, all pulsating with the green light of massive energy concentrated into tiny spheres. This holster Tseng laid, together with its gun, on Rufus's pillow. Rufus barely glanced at it before his eyes returned to Tseng's face.

"Thank you," he said.

.

By the time Tseng arrived at the scene of the explosion, a large throng had gathered and was blocking the street as everyone pushed forward trying to get a better view. He elbowed a path through the crowd to the cordoned-off area, where PSM grunts were holding the curious at bay. The bomb had left a gaping hole in the back wall of the Shinra accounts office; shards of glass and chunks of brick lay scattered across a wide radius. Tseng stepped over the tape, ducked in through the hole, and found Rude and Reno picking through the debris, accompanied by some forensic scientists from the thirty-third floor labs.

"Hey," Reno greeted him, "You took your time, Boss."

The bomb had gone off at five in the morning. Nobody had been hurt, but the accounts for the entire ward had been destroyed. The intense heat had melted the computers into misshapen lumps of plastic, and all the books, the receipts, and the outgoing bills for the coming month had been reduced to ashes. A safe that had withstood the initial blast had been pried open with a crowbar. According to the office manager, whom Reno had questioned earlier, three thousand gil in cash was missing.

On the scorched wall behind the safe, somebody – presumably the perpetrators – had spray-painted in brilliant red:

DOWN WITH THE SHINRA!

AVELANCHE IS EVERYWARE!

Tseng raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah," said Reno, "Smells all wrong, doesn't it?"

"Ammonium nitrate and diesel," said Rude.

"I'm talking, partner," said Reno, giving him a dark look, "about the metaphorical way this whole scene reeks." He made a sweeping gesture with his rod that took in the drifts of cooling cinders, the blackened safe, the blown-out window. "This isn't their style. Avalanche always goes for high-profile targets. Reactors. The rocket launch. The Cannon. What got trashed here? A bunch of final demands. It's bogus."

"Made _their_ day," Rude grunted. He meant the crowd outside, who could be heard breaking into an impromptu street party.

Tseng felt obscurely let down. Rosalind's initial mention of Avalanche had raised his hopes; he'd allowed himself to anticipate finding a piece of real evidence, something solid to lead them out of their current deadlock. Instead. he and his team would now be tied up for days investigating this minor incident. Ordinarily, PSM should have handled it. No company secrets were hidden in this little billing office. But the name of Avalanche had been invoked, and that made it Turk business.

"What d'you think we're dealing with here, Boss?" asked Reno. "Splinter group?"

_Scarlet_, thought Tseng, then firmly clamped down on the thought. Rufus was right: he needed to stop seeing her hand in every setback. Paranoia was not conducive to intelligent decision-making.

"Anything is possible," he said, "But my gut feeling is the same as yours. These people have nothing to do with Avalanche. They're using the name for the fear factor, or as a smoke screen. It wouldn't the first time. They do appear to know something about explosives, so they're not complete amateurs."

"Mining connection?" Rude suggested.

Outside in the street the self-appointed DJ ramped up the volume on a set of hastily-assembled speakers. The drumbeat intensified. People cheered and clapped.

Tseng's eyes narrowed. "Or possibly someone who thinks Shinra ought to be providing electricity for free. Reno, go out and tell those idiots that anyone who paid their bill at this office over the last quarter had better be able to prove it. Avalanche are not public benefactors and blowing up accounts offices doesn't do anyone any favours. Please make that clear to them. And then tell them to turn off that damn music and go home."

.

All the Turks worked overtime in the week that followed. Tseng had no intention of giving Scarlet, or anyone else, grounds for claiming that the Department of Administrative Research were failing to take the latest Avalanche outrage seriously. Posters promising large rewards in return for information went up on community noticeboards all over the slums. The employees of the bombed accounts office needed to be questioned individually; Skeeter, Cavour and Aviva were assigned to this task. Rosalind made the rounds of all the shops in Midgar registered as purveyors of diesel fuel, to check their sales records. In Fort Condor, negotiations had stalled; Tseng called Knox home, and sent him out with Hunter to interview spokesmen from the Mythril Mutual Aid Society, the rump of the old Coal-Pitman's Union, and other slum-based organizations with links to the mining industry.

Every day, at four o'clock in the afternoon, Cissnei phoned in to report her continued failure to find Zack. She'd managed to track him as far as the mainland – he'd taken a local ferry across the straits to the Zemzel coast west of Condor – but when she'd got there she'd found the bike abandoned in a little spinney about four miles up the road from where he'd last refueled. The tank was empty, punctured by a stone. Zack was long gone. He might have hitched a lift. The highway forked not far ahead: left to Junon, right to Mythril. She could pick a direction, toss a coin. Whichever fork she took, she could miss him; he might have decided to continue his journey on foot, cross-country, carrying Strife on his back.

The landscape was vast, the forests dark and impenetrable, the monsters poisonous. From time to time military helicopters passed over her head, circling in wide arcs through the cloudless sky. The army was also on the hunt. What did Tseng want her to do?

"Head for Mythril," he told her. Zack wouldn't risk Junon: there were too many Shinra people there who would recognize his face. "Ask around. If nobody's seen him, it's safe to assume he's taken some other route."

Eyewitnesses to the bombing were needed. Tseng sent Reno and Mink to dig some out. "Real ones," he insisted. Their orders were to go from door to door, questioning everybody. Reno called this kind of work "playing 'round the houses'". It wasn't a job he relished, particularly when it was obvious that they were going to go to all this trouble only to come up empty-handed – but he was glad of the chance to talk to Mink somewhere far away from the bugs in the ventilation shafts and the flapping ears of his co-workers. He wanted to pick her brain about Rufus.

This wasn't a decision he'd come to lightly. Tseng's barb about spreading idle gossip, and Rude's accusation of being stuck in the past, had cut much deeper than he would willingly let on. But still. The problem wasn't going to go away just because Rude and Tseng refused to talk about it. This was Rufus Shinra they were dealing with: nothing the little shit did or said could be taken at face value. Reno knew he wasn't wrong about that, and he was damn well going to prove it. His pride as a Turk was on the line now.

Of all the women in his department, he reckoned Mink was the one least likely to have fallen into Rufus Shinra's bed. She wasn't ambitious, or tender-hearted, or generous. She never looked lonely-eyed the way Roz sometimes did, and she didn't seem like the type who'd find spoilt pretty boys appealing. She was a straight-talker, too. Well, _brutally frank_ would be a better description. If she thought he was way off beam she'd let him know it. What was more, she knew how to keep her trap shut. Whatever he told her would go no further. The Boss was burning on a pretty short fuse right now, and until Reno had something concrete, like a name, to bring to the table, he didn't want to try Tseng's patience any further than he absolutely had to.

In the event, though, Mink let him down. He broached the subject as they made their way on foot from the railway station to the ward office, but she reacted with discouraging indifference to his bombshell revelation that their VIP prisoner was engaged in sexual relations with one of their own colleagues; she refused to speculate on the identity of the guilty party, and said that _if_ it was true (which, knowing Reno, was only somewhat likely) she didn't see how it was any more of a problem than Tys and Hunter – a relationship, incidentally, which had outlasted everyone's expectations, and was a warning to them all not to make hasty assumptions. According to Mink, the V.P. had 'grown up a lot these past years'; she believed there was 'more to him' than she'd once thought. Pressed to give further details, she told Reno that Rufus 'had some interesting ideas' and 'seemed sincere'.

Reno eyed her as if she might be contagious. "Bloody hell," he sighed. "Don't tell me you've joined the fanclub too? I thought you were smarter than that."

"I don't join fanclubs," Mink replied. "But I do try to keep an open mind. I haven't forgotten what he did. Or who he is. Or what he will be."

"Yeah, well – that's not a certainty."

"What is?" she shrugged.

"So you don't think it's the Honey, then?"

"I think you wish it was."

"I can't believe it's Roz. I don't want to believe it's Veev."

"Look, Reno," said Mink, in the tone he'd often heard her use when talking to children, "There's no call for you to believe anything. The only thing you'll stir up is trouble. The V.P.'s an adult. We're all adults. Just drop it. That's all I have to say. Okay, here we are. You want to do this together, or split up?"

"Split up," he said at once. "We'll be done twice as fast."

He watched her walk away. Had she just accused him of being vindictive? Or was she throwing dust in his eyes? Maybe he'd read her all wrong. Maybe the V.P. was into hot older women. She hadn't seemed surprised by the news. Then again, he could count on the fingers of one hand the times he'd seen Mink looked surprised about anything.

And why was he assuming he was the only one who could put two and two together? Maybe everyone knew. Maybe Tseng had known all along what was going on and with whom and was covering up for them; maybe the whole department was in the know, and the only person who didn't know was Reno, because they'd agreed to keep it from him, because Reno Wouldn't Understand, because it was A Touchy Subject….

_Yeah, well - fuck them, and their secrets_. _The Chief would never have let it get this far. I just hope Tseng knows what he's doing. Because I'm not letting this drop until I'm satisfied._

It was time to get to work. Reno chose a lane at random and began working his way from doorstep to doorstep. More than half his knocks went unanswered; those who did come to the door responded to his questions with the predicted stone wall of ignorance. Nobody had seen anything. Nobody had heard anything. Everybody had been asleep, so fast asleep that not even an exploding bomb had been able to wake them.

"So the kid slept right through it, huh?" he remarked, looking past the housewife and into her shack, where a small boy with a runny nose lay apathetically on the concrete floor. The woman had been leaning in her doorway while she talked to him, but now she moved to block the Turk's view of her child. "Lee's always been a good sleeper," she said.

In her round belly there was another one on the way. "You work?" Reno asked her.

"Someone's gotta."

"Where?"

"Up top. I clean houses. I gotta card; it's legal. Agency work."

"Where's your husband?"

She snorted derisively. Two of her teeth were missing. Tired bruises ringed her sunken eyes. She could have been forty. She was probably younger than he was.

He thought of the girls he used to run around with when he was a kid. Tough girls who'd kick you in the nuts as soon as look as you; rough girls in cheap shoes and too much make-up, but soft in the middle if you buttered them up right. At twelve they were young women, and their dreams were so small; all they asked for was someone to love. Then he'd got out, and they'd grown old. These days he barely recognised them. They looked like grandmothers, and some of them were. A few of them had made their escape, the ones who had something going for them, brains or looks or spirit. The whorehouse wasn't the only way. Once they'd saddled themselves with a kid, though, they were usually screwed.

There'd been a time way back at the beginning when he'd thought about them a lot, the ones who hadn't got a break, who'd been left behind. He'd had a stroke of good luck, sure, but it wasn't like he hadn't earned it. He'd shed blood, his own as well as others', to carve out his opportunity. Not everyone was willing to do that. Not everyone had what it took. That was the point, he supposed. That was how slums like this came to be in the first place.

Nowadays thinking about such things made him weary. There was no answer, because there wasn't really a question. "Thanks for your time," he said to the woman. She went back inside, and he moved on.

.

In the Shinra building, on the floor between floors, Tseng was talking down his black-market phone to Cissnei.

"I'm in Madouge Corners now," she told him. "The manager of the trading post and the guy who runs the chocobo stables have both given me positive IDs. Zack sold some stuff at the trader's – a Shinra Beta and a Safety Vest. He used the gil to hire a couple of chocobos and headed into the old mine works. That was at nine o'clock this morning."

"So he's seven hours ahead of you. Any sign of the army?"

"I passed several transports on the road, but they were going in the opposite direction. They haven't been into the town, as far as I can tell."

"Could they have been heading for the road tunnel?" asked Tseng.

"I suppose it's possible. Boss, are you – I mean, we've got a rough idea where he is now. There isn't any way you could send a chopper…."

Cissnei didn't bother to finish the question. She knew how air traffic control was operating these days. The Old Man had restored their independent flight privileges, but their movements were still closely monitored. If any of their helicopters made an unauthorized landing, it would only be a matter of minutes before the information was in Scarlet's hands.

"I'm not sacrificing the entire department for him," said Tseng, "If I send out choppers for him, it's over. I have to bring him back. Dead or alive."

"I know. I understand that. Tseng – "

"Yes?"

"If it comes down to that… if I have to…. I can do it."

"Are you giving up, Cissnei?" asked Tseng quietly.

"Sir, no – "

"Good. How are you for money?"

"I've enough for a chocobo."

"Then get the fastest you can find and get going."

"At once, sir."

Tseng shut the phone. He pinched the bridge of his nose, and rubbed his hand across his eyes. Leaving the surveillance room, he closed the door behind him, returned to the main floor, and went to the kitchen to pour himself another cup of coffee, even though he'd just finished one. He thought briefly about the double-standards inherent in flushing Skeeter's drugs down the toilet, the arbitrariness of what was deemed acceptable. He then thought, for rather longer, about Rufus. When those thoughts grew unbearable, he went back to his office, sat down, picked up a highlighter, took Knox's report on his interview with the secretary of the Pitmen's Union from the top of his intray, and began to read.

* * *

_Once again, thanks to all of you for reading, favouriting, reviewing, and, I hope, enjoying._


	52. Where Every Journey Ends

**WHERE EVERY JOURNEY ENDS**

* * *

_Time: 20__th__ September, 1.15 pm. __Location: Somewhere on the Kalm-Midgar Highway_

The sign swinging at the turn-in to the mako station said 'LAST CHANCE TILL MIDGAR! Another hour's drive south would get you to the city, two hours if you went off road to circumvent the checkpoints and the inevitable demands for bribes. In the other direction, north, the road ran fifteen miles through rolling grasslands to Kalm, where, on the days when the wind blew in off the ocean, a whiff of sea-salt hung in the air. Those refreshing breezes never reached as far inland as this fuel station, set in a little hollow and surrounded by scrubland. A fine film of yellowish dust covered every available surface: the fuel pumps, the shop windows, the swinging sign, the stunted, dying bushes, and the white station wagon that had just pulled in off the road from Midgar.

Inside the shop, the till attendant was holding her phone open under the counter. She kept glancing up from the photo her brother had sent her to look out through the dust-smeared window. A rusty yellow pick-up truck stood parked at the number three pump. The driver, an older man in a grey sweatshirt and a white cap, was filling the tank. Two younger guys were with him, riding in the back. One seemed to be asleep. The other, a tall man with thick, ragged black hair, had jumped over the tailgate and started chatting to the kids in the station wagon. He wore a SOLDIER uniform, and carried slung across his back the biggest sword she'd ever seen in her life.

_Escaped psycho, _her brother had said. _This is the guy that killed Scott and Boomer, and half of G Company. If you see him, don't you go anywhere near him._

The bell over the door tinkled as it opened: the driver of the pick-up truck came in. She quickly snapped the phone shut. He took three frosty sodas from the cooler and set them on the counter. "That's a hundred and sixty-two gil altogether," she said, hoping he wouldn't notice that her voice squeaked with fear.

"Gone up again, huh? The richer get richer." He pulled out his wallet. She took his money, counted his change into his palm with trembling fingers, and asked, "He - he your son?"

The driver followed her glance out the window and grinned. "Nah. Hitch-hiker. I'm taking the scenic route. He'll come in useful. Well, cheers, love. Take care."

As soon as he was out the door, she opened the phone again. There was no mistake. That hair. It had to be him.

_They're offering a big reward_, her brother had said. _It could mean a promotion for me. More money. _

She watched him vault into the back of the pick-up. It drove out past the sign that read ARRIVE ALIVE: ROLL UP YOUR WINDOWS, and turned in the direction of Midgar. She began to dial the number her brother had given her. As she was doing so, the bell on the door rang again and the father from the station wagon came in.

"Hang on a sec," she told him. "Hello – is that Garuda D Company? This is Lance Corporal Owen Sutcliffe's sister speaking. I think I've just seen the man you're looking for."

.

_Time: same day, 1.40 pm. __Location: Inside the Shinra Building, 48__th__ floor_

Reno had commandeered the corner desk and was sitting with a pair of pliers in his left hand, his mag-rod in his right, a cigarette hanging from his lip. Some short pieces of wire were set out on the desk in front of him. He'd been working on the rod for a while now. "Hey, Two-Guns," he called out to Cavour, who had just walked into the room carrying a sheaf of folders, "look what I can do," and before the other Turk had time to react, Reno had pointed his rod and enclosed him within a glowing four-sided pyramid of light. "Heh," he grinned. "See, Rude? It works. Told ya."

"What the fuck?" shouted Cavour. His voice rang hollow, as if his head were stuck inside a cardboard box. The files he'd been carrying lay scattered round his feet. A few sheets of paper adhered to to the walls of the pyramid, held there by static cling. Transparent, shimmering, the pyramid looked no more substantial than a ray of sunlight, but when Cavour moved to step out of it he smacked his nose against a surface as hard as glass and staggered backwards.

"What's it in like in there, Cavs?" asked Reno.

"Fuck you," Cavour shouted. "Feels like I got ants crawling all over my skin. Turn it off."

"You could have made it prettier," said Rude from his side of the room. "Like a rainbow. Why's it piss-coloured?"

"Because my rod's not gay."

"Too bad your mom wasn't!" Cavour slammed the wall of light with his fist. "Come on, let me out."

The door opened and Tys came sauntering in. When he saw Cavour trapped in the pyramid, and understood that Reno was the mastermind behind this piece of mischief, his eyes turned to limpid pools of adoration. "That is so fucking cool," he laughed. "Can you make mine do that?"

"Later, maybe. If I feel like it. Try to get out, Cavs."

"I _am_ trying." Cavour kicked at the pyramid wall. The structure rocked, and Cavour tumbled sideways.

"Try shooting it," Reno suggested.

"I'll fucking shoot you." Cavour drew one of his guns and aimed it at Reno's grinning face. Reno didn't flinch, not even when Cavour pulled the trigger.

"Jammed," said Cavour disbelievingly.

"Can it do that too?" Tys marveled.

"A joke's a joke," Cavour shouted. "Reno! This buzzing's doing my head in."

"Tap it, Tys," said Reno. "Not too hard."

Tys walked over and rapped his knuckles against the pyramid. At his touch the lights dissolved like fireworks fading against the night sky. Cavour lurched forward, gun in hand; Tys leapt to grab him, forcing his arm down.

"I gotta say," Reno remarked, eyeing his mag-rod appreciatively, "it worked even better than I thought it would. Thanks, Cavs."

"Wanker. Warn me next time, at least. And you could help me pick up these papers."

"Where's the Boss-man?" asked Tys. "I need to give him this." He raised his other hand, and for the first time Reno noticed that he was holding something dark, strappy, weighty, harnessy - a loaded holster. The sheen of the dragon leather was instantly recognisable.

"How'd you get hold of _that_?" he demanded, pushing back his chair and beginning to stand up. To tell the truth, he felt a tiny twinge of envy at the sight of that holster in Tys' hands, because Tseng normally never let anyone borrow his guns, and scarcely even tolerated requests to _touch_ those precious holsters. "He didn't – _lend_ it to you, did he?"

"Nah, he left in the bunker."

Reno froze in mid-motion, hands leaning on his desk. "The bunker?" he repeated slowly.

"Yeah. The V.P. was working at his computer, and I was bored, so I started going through his lockers looking for his porn stash – "

"What makes you think he has porn?" interrupted Cavour.

"Dude. Everybody has porn."

"And where would he get it from?"

"I dunno," said Tys. "Maybe he orders it over the Internet and Roz brings it to him in a brown paper bag."

"And he'd pay for it how?"

Tys was momentarily stumped.

"You lent it to him, didn't you?" said Cavour.

"No! – Yeah, all right, I did. C'mon, don't look at me like that. It's just porn. And anyway, it was Hunt's idea. We felt sorry for him. Dude's been flying solo for four years now – "

"Where did you find that gun?" said Reno.

Tys gave him a baffled look. "I told you. At the back of the V.P.'s locker, behind his socks."

"So he was hiding it?"

"No. Yes. Well, not – exactly."

"Does he know you've taken it?"

"Yeah, of course. When I found it I said, 'Oh hey, what's this doing here?' and he said the Boss forgot it – "

"_Forgot_ it?" said Reno incredulously.

"Yeah. That's why he put it in his locker, so we wouldn't see that the Boss was getting so forgetful. And then he forgot to remind him that he'd forgotten it. He asked me to bring it back to him. So where is he, anyway? He's not in his office."

"Surveillance room," said Rude, speaking for the first time. He didn't look at Tys as he spoke. He was watching Reno.

Tys glanced from Rude to Reno, puzzled by the sudden tension in the room. "Geez, guys, what's the big deal? Even the Boss is gonna forget stuff sometimes. He's under a lot of stress right now."

"Tseng never takes his guns off," said Reno. "Why would he take them off?"

Tys shrugged. "Why wouldn't he? It gets friggin' hot in that place. And he practically lives there. He's got all kinds of crap down there, papers and spare ties and that special coffee in the fridge that we're not supposed to touch. Why does it matter, anyway?"

Reno leant forward, and said through his teeth, "A gun is not a fucking cell phone."

"But it's not like Rufus was going to do anything with it. The V.P.'s on our side now, Reno. He's cool."

"Cool?" said Reno dangerously.

Rude said, "Reno -"

The door hissed open and Aviva ran in. "Listen, everybody," she exclaimed. "We all need to get up to the roof, now. The army's found Zack Fair."

.

_2.15 pm. The roof of the Shinra building _

Four helicopters were waiting for them. Tseng had gone straight to the President, bypassing the usual obstacle course, and the Old Man had phoned the orders down to the flight dispatcher himself. They were met on the tarmac by Knox, who swiftly briefed them. According to the information provided by their field operative, the target had been last seen heading for Midgar, but nothing matching his vehicle's description had passed through Checkpoint Alpha, making it safe to assume that he was cutting across country, using the network of dirt roads that criss-crossed the badlands. D Company from the Garuda regiment had already been mobilized and were moving out; Tys and Cavour would tail them. Aviva and Mink were to make a systematic visual search of the quadrant west of the highway, from point 300 to point 210. Reno and Rude would do the same in the east quadrant. Tseng would remain in the surveillance room with Rosalind, coordinating their movements. Once they found Zack, they were to tell him whatever lies were necessary to get him in to the helicopter, and then bring him to the coordinates written on the post-it notes that Knox was now distributing. Tseng would rendezvous with them there.

"What about you?" asked Mink.

"I'm picking up Ciss," he replied, avoiding Reno's eyes. "She called it in."

"Well?" said Reno. "What are we waiting for? Let's get on with it."

One after another they climbed into their helicopters and flew away. Knox was the last to leave. He set his course for the north-east, heading for a mako refueling station fifteen miles south of Kalm, where Cissnei was waiting to be collected.

.

_2.55 pm. Point 092_

Reno hadn't uttered a word since leaving the Shinra building. The pressure of his silence filled the cockpit. Rude could think of nothing safe to say. He kept his eyes trained out the window.

Storms clouds were building on the western horizon. Their towering thunderheads glowed brilliant white; their black underbellies were swollen with rain. The wind had picked up. Pockets of turbulence jostled the helicopter. Reno's hands tightened around the controls.

"Bad weather ahead," Rude ventured.

"Yeah," Reno sneered, "looks like fate's chosen today to piss all over us."

Rude made a non-committal grunt, and returned to his careful surveillance of the ground far below them. So far, he'd spotted a camper van, several cars, some bikers racing in a spew of dust, and a griffin asleep on a rocky outcrop, but nothing matching the description of a yellow pick-up truck with two spikey-haired soldiers riding in the back.

"What a fucking wasteland," said Reno. "How are we supposed to find them in that?"

"We'll find them," said Rude. "Because – "

"Yeah, yeah. We're Turks. Blah blah."

"Tseng – " Rude risked the name – "has something for him."

"For 'the target'?" said Reno with heavy sarcasm.

"Uh-huh."

"So we've been chasing his ass for a year in order to make a delivery?" Reno jerked his chin - an insulting gesture, like spitting, but more subtle and thus, somehow, even more redolent of contempt.

Mink's voice came over their headphones. "Reno, Rude, what's your situation?"

"We got nothing," said Reno.

"Same here," said Mink. "Tys says the army's heading north by north-east. I'm going to take us to point 235. You go to point 210."

"Understood," said Rude.

"Hurry, hurry, hurry," Reno muttered, wheeling the helicopter away to the right.

.

_2.59 pm. Behind the fuel station on the Kalm-Midgar Highway_

Cissnei sat on a rock in a field of weeds. To kill time while she waited for Knox, she practiced her target shooting on the cell phone she'd forced the till attendant to hand over at gunpoint. Her heart had burned to shoot the girl herself, so killing her phone was a compromise - not a very satisfactory one, but there was nothing else to do, and right now Cissnei could not endure doing nothing.

She'd nearly ridden right past the fuel station, so confident was she of having Zack almost within her sights at last. Thirst had persuaded her to stop. The attendant stared at her when she came through the door: she was covered in dirt from head to foot and hadn't slept or eaten much other than dust for nearly two days. When she'd brought her bottle of water to the till, a sudden impulse had made her show the girl Zack's photo and ask if he'd come through recently. The girl had instantly said no, but not before Cissnei had glimpsed the recognition flickering in her eyes, together with something else – guilt? Fear? – that set the Turk's nerves jangling like the bell over the shop door. With every second that passed, Zack was getting further away from her, deeper into whatever danger this girl knew lay in wait for him. Pulling out her gun, Cissnei took aim at the girl's right eye and said, "I think you'd better tell me just what the fuck's been going on here."

The essential point soon became clear: fate was conspiring against them. Still, hope died hard. Cissnei did what she could: she confiscated the girl's phone, went outside and called Tseng, confessed her failure. In the station bathroom she washed her face and hair and changed into a crumpled work suit dug out from the bottom of her backpack. Then she sat down to wait. By the time Knox arrived, the phone was scattered in tiny pieces across a wide area, and Cissnei was firing bullets into the dry earth.

"Get me out of this place," she said.

Once they were up in the air, Knox turned to take a good look at her. Her hair was a wet mess of coppery tangles. Dirt rimmed her fingernails. Her suit smelled musty. He gave her his twisted smile. "Welcome back," he said. "I wish the circumstances could have been better, but it's good to see you."

"Where are we going?"

"H.Q. Tseng wants to talk to you."

"Any news yet?"

"Nothing. Cissnei, are you okay?"

She gave a crisp little nod, staring straight ahead. Her arms were tightly folded across her chest.

"You look pretty whacked. Why not shut your eyes for a bit?" Knox suggested.

"I couldn't sleep. Do you mind if we don't talk? You fly, and I'll keep looking."

.

_3.36 pm. Somewhere over the badlands_

Halfway to point 210 Rude spotted a trail of dust moving in the direction of Midgar. "Go down," he said. The storm was coming closer, and the wind had grown fiercer; their helicopter kept yanking upwards, like a kite trying to snap its string. "Hold her steady," said Rude.

Normally Reno would have fired back something like, 'Co-pilots who tell me how to fly are liable to be ejected without warning', or if he was feeling crabby he might have said, 'You try steering this bitch into a thirty knot headwind and see if you can hold her friggin' steady'. This time he said nothing but 'fuck', which was muttered under his breath and didn't seem to be aimed at Rude particularly. He kept the helicopter hovering long enough for Rude to determine that the truck was not the vehicle they were looking for; was, instead, a blue and white lorry stacked with red soda crates. "False alarm," Rude said.

The helicopter shot upwards so fast he was thrown off-balance. Instinctively he grabbed hold of the edge of his seat, and turned to glare at Reno.

"Collective's twitchy," Reno grunted.

The disturbance at point 210 turned out to be nothing but a pack of Kalm wolves on the hunt. They had brought down a diornis just before Rude and Reno arrived. The Turks circled above the kill, looking down at the feeding wolves, the blood-spattered sand. Reno's jaw was clenched so tight it looked like the edge of a razor. Rude waited for him to make some acid comment. But he said nothing.

Rude radioed to Mink. No progress in that quadrant. He radioed Tys, who told him that the army had almost reached the edge of the badlands. Still there was no sign of Zack.

He asked Reno, "Think he's hiding in a cave somewhere?"

Reno shrugged.

"Well… Call Roz?"

"What are we doing?" exclaimed Reno suddenly. "I mean – just what the fuck are we doing out here, playing this farce? You know what I think? Zack's not the real issue. We are. This is a test. The Old Man may be crazy, but he's not stupid. He's testing our loyalty. He knows we helped them escape from Nibelheim. He knows we're disobeying him over the Chief. If it weren't for the fact that we're still holding his kid, I reckon he'd have had us taken out back months ago and shot us like the fucking dogs we are. We've got this one last chance to prove ourselves. It's Fair or us, Rude. If we let him go this time, we can kiss good-bye to any hope of helping the Chief. We'll be running for our own lives."

Rude ruminated on this for a few moments. "So…?"

"I'm thinking maybe we should let the army have him."

"Let them win?"

"I'd rather look like a loser than a traitor."

"They'll take him to Hojo."

"Yeah, well…. Maybe _we_ should take him to Hojo."

"That's for Tseng to decide."

Reno's whole face contorted. "Tseng." He almost spat out the name.

Rude said nothing.

"You trust him to decide?" Reno asked.

Rude chose not to answer.

"The fuck only know what he's thinking," said Reno.

"He didn't tell you?"

"He told me nothing."

"Hunh," said Rude. "I thought if he was going to tell anyone, he'd tell you and Roz."

Reno didn't immediately reply, though his mouth worked as if he were chewing on something that tasted bad. Over the headset Rude could hear the sound of Reno's teeth grinding together. It came to him, with an unfamiliar stab of fear, that he had _never_, in all the many years they'd known each other, seen Reno this angry.

Reno said, "I used to think so too. Funny, huh?"

"You know the Chief comes first with him. Always has. Always will."

"I know he used to."

"That hasn't changed."

"You reckon?" Reno gave Rude a long, speculative, unfriendly, sidelong glance.

"It's like you said," Rude replied too fast. "It's Zack or us. Tseng knows that."

"Yeah, well…. Could be we're not his top priority any more -"

A crackling in their headsets interrupted him. "This is Shinra Pi-Sigma-Mu Alpha-alpha zero-nine beta-zero-five," said a male voice neither of them recognized. "Please identify yourself. Over."

"The _Alexanders_?" Reno exclaimed, leaning forward to peer through the windscreen at a small dot in the distant sky. "I thought Heidegger had the Garudas out on this."

"I repeat," said the voice, "Identify yourself. Over."

"Shinra Alpha-Rho zero-nine zero-tau-two," said Rude. "Over."

"Heh," sniggered the soldier in the distant helicopter, evidently talking to someone else, "It's them." To Rude and Reno he added: "Hey, losers, listen. We got some garbage you might wanna pick up. That's what you guys do, right? Get rid of other's people's trash for them? Over."

"You've found the target?" Rude demanded.

Raucous laughter burned their ears.

Reno said furiously, "Do you know who you're talking to?"

"Some wanker in a suit, isn't it?"

"You'll give me your number, soldier. Now."

"I bet you say that to all the girls," the voice tittered.

Reno's expression grew murderous. "That's an order."

Far away the other helicopter filled with the terrible sound of grown men giggling, high on their post combat bliss. The voice said, "Why don't you come and get it, if you think you're man enough?"

A second soldier's voice cut in: "I just took down a fucking _First Class_, man! I ain't scared of a couple of goons_._"

A bolt of lighting split the sky, rolling shock-waves of thunder through the air. The helicopter pitched and bucked; Reno fought to control it.

"Whoo-hoo!" whooped the soldiers in the other helicopter. "Rock'n'roll!"

The job of keeping them airborne had taken all of Reno's attention. Rude spoke into the mike, "Where is he?"

"Ask those turkey-chicks of yours. We gave them the coordinates. They begged us so nicely, we just couldn't resist. Oh, and if you're planning on pulling a fast one, forget it. We took his dogtags; we have proof. Well, guess we'd better fly -" the soldier snickered at his own joke, " - so have a nice day, Turks, 'coz you never know, it just might be –"

Reno cut the transmission, as the first lashings of rain hit the windscreen.

.

_4.00 pm. Inside the Shinra Building_

"I told you a little friendly rivalry would do the trick," said President Shinra to the men and women assembled round his boardroom table. The thunderstorm was gathering strength overhead, and he had to raise his voice a trifle in order to make himself heard. The rattle of the rain on the plate glass windows sounded, to Tseng, like machine-gun fire.

_He's dead. It doesn't seem possible. _

The Old Man was still speaking. "Congratulate your men on their fine work, Heidegger. We can all sleep a little sounder in our beds tonight, thanks to their sacrifice – "

_It's all over. Just like that._

" - Wendy, I want you to get started right away on the usual letters of condolence. Liaise with Colonel Viljoen and Colonel Magritte for the names. Have the letters on my desk first thing tomorrow morning – "

_So many things to do. Aerith – Rufus - Cissnei -_

"That concludes our meeting. Tseng, stay behind. I need to talk to you."

By an tremendous effort of will Tseng brought his thoughts under control and forced himself to stand still, outwardly impassive, patient, attentive, waiting by the Old Man's side while everyone else filed from the room. As soon as they were gone, the President swiveled in his chair to look up at him and say, "Did you _see_ that damned Heidegger's fat face? Puffed up like a ruddy hedgehog pie."

Of course Tseng had seen it. He feared what it might augur for his team.

"You lost me my bet," said the Old Man, petulantly. "I was counting on you."

"I take full responsibility," Tseng replied evenly and without hesitation, while all the time his thoughts kept whirring: _what now? What now?_

"Hmmm. Well. I expect you did your best, eh? I can't suppose you wanted it to end like this, any more than I did. You and Fair were friends, weren't you?"

"In a manner of speaking, sir. We worked together on several missions."

"Ah, the good old days." The Old Man sighed. "We won't see their like again. This is the end of an era, Tseng. It's a sad day. A sad day. It's not the money I regret, you know. We had such high hopes for that project. Mind you, we could call _you_ a sort of project, couldn't we? Veld's little experiment. I suppose there's still no sign of the old weasel?"

"He hasn't resurfaced since Professor Bugenhagen spoke to him last October."

"And you have no idea where he is?"

"None, sir. I wish I did."

"I'm sure you do. I'm sure you do." The Old Man chuckled, but it wasn't really a happy sound. "The plain fact of the matter is, you'll never be half the Turk he was."

"Commander Veld was my superior in all things, sir."

"Don't you people have a saying? How does it go, now? 'Leviathan say, pupil who fail to outdo his master bring shame on one who taught him.' Shame on Veld, eh? He should have taught you better. And how is my boy doing these days?"

Tseng steadied himself. "Rufus is fine, sir. Working hard. Studying."

"You've been keeping him in the loop with this SOLDIER business?"

"As you instructed."

"And what does he think about it?"

Tseng considered how best to sum Rufus's views up. "That it was necessary, but regrettable."

He was on edge waiting, as one always did when talking with this old man, for the trap to be sprung. But the President only sighed again - too heavy a sigh for a man whose army had just won a long-sought victory - and said, "He's got a good head on his shoulders, that boy. If only we could cure him of his recklessness… But I'm afraid it's in the blood."

President Shinra paused there, and swiveled his chair round to look out the rain-streaked window. "Quite a downpour," he observed. "The last time it rained in Midgar was five years ago. I remember it, because it was the day Lazard left."

Tseng couldn't say for sure whether the President's memory was reliable on this point or not.

"It's just a coincidence, of course," said the Old Man. "But it _feels _significant. Lazard thought very highly of Zack Fair, you know. Used to hold him up as proof that with the right training you could take an ordinary man and make him almost as good as Sephiroth. I told him the difference between 'almost as good' and 'as good' was the difference between winning and coming second. Lazard wasn't in favour of the Jenova project. Very critical of the whole bioengineering program, he was. That's why I never could understand why he got himself tangled up with Hollander."

Above their heads, thunder rumbled. Tseng and the Old Man listened to it fade away.

The Old Man said, "Do you think Lazard's dead, Tseng?"

It was a relief to be able to answer, "Yes, sir. I do."

The Old Man's shoulders slumped infinitesimally; one needed to be watching with a trained eye, or expecting it, to see it. "I think you're probably right. Well, that'll be all. You can go, Tseng. Shut the door behind you."

.

_4.15 pm. The badlands._

They'd been ordered to return to HQ, but Reno didn't want to go back yet. He had fallen under the spell of a morbid curiosity, and in his present mood Rude thought it wiser not to oppose him.

The rain had stopped by the time they reached the coordinates Aviva had given them. To the east, the thunderstorm was lingering above Midgar. To the west, the sky had been washed clean. The air temperature had dropped, but the sun was hot: the yellow, rain-soaked earth steamed in the afternoon light. Zack's body lay face-up in a bloody puddle. Mink and Aviva were standing over him, one on his left, the other on his right. Mink's arms hung heavy from her shoulders. Aviva's hands were clasped at her throat. She glanced up when the men joined them. Mink did not.

"So," said Reno eventually, "That's what a dead First Class looks like." If his voice held any emotion at all, it was surprise.

Zack was undeniably dead; his limbs were already beginning to stiffen, and his cold skin was grey with blood-loss. Tacky clots of blood matted his hair. Bullets and spent ammunition cartridges lay all around them, enough to take down a whole battalion, and his SOLDIER uniform, or what remained of it, had been shot to shreds. He had bled to death, probably internally as well as externally. Yet the Turks could not see a single wound. Blood-smeared and peaceful, hands slightly curled, eyes gently closed, Zack looked as smoothly intact as if he'd just been born.

"I don't understand," said Aviva, turned to Reno as if she expected him to have the answers. "This isn't possible. How can this happen?"

"Their treatments?" Reno made the suggestion sound like a wild stab in the dark.

"Maybe…." Rude tailed off, leaving the rest of his thought, whatever it was, unspoken.

For a while, nobody else said anything. Finally Aviva heaved a ragged breath and said, "If only we'd been quicker – "

Mink shook her head. "Even if we'd found him first, he wouldn't have come with us, no matter what we said."

"You don't know that for sure."

"Oh, open your eyes, Veev," Mink sighed. "We're not the good guys any more."

"Don't start," Reno broke in, as if it didn't matter. "What happened to the other one? Whatshisname, the sickie?"

"He's not here," said Mink. "We've searched."

"The army took him?" Reno was watching Mink's face, but from the corner of his eye he saw Aviva flick a guilty glance in Mink's direction. "What?" he demanded.

"I guess they must have," said Mink.

"Veev?"

She blushed and stammered, "I didn't _see_ him."

Cursing them both, Reno turned on his heel and strode to the dirt road. The others watched him walk slowly up and down, head bent in thought, reading the tracks in the earth. After a couple of minutes he began to work his way slowly around the perimeter of the butte, until he came to a narrow gap between two rocky outcroppings which – as Aviva and Mink well knew – gave access to a steep downhill trail. He toed a stone aside. Then he crouched down, brushed his fingers over the soil, blew on something, gazed at it intently for a few moments, and laid his palm flat on the ground. He remained in this posture for several minutes, while the others watched him. Aviva sensed Rude shifting uneasily.

At length Reno stood up and turned eastwards, towards the city, scanning the plain of Midgar for signs of movement.

"Can't see anything," he said, coming back to them. "Target must be hiding."

"He was gone when we got here," said Mink. "Listen, Reno – "

"You deliberately covered up his tracks. And made a piss-poor job of it, I might add."

"He's just a kid. He's sick. He's weak."

"Then he won't have got far."

"Reno, come on - he's _harmless_."

"He's got the sword," Reno pointed out. "Judging by his tracks, he's dragging it behind him."

Rude now spoke, to ask, "Why didn't they kill him too?"

"We wondered that," said Aviva.

"That sword's useless to him," said Mink. "Nobody but a SOLDIER can lift it. He's no danger to anyone but himself. Can't we – "

"We have to go after him," said Reno flatly.

They all knew he was right. Mink took a long breath. "Fine," she said. "I'll go."

"Not on your own -"

"Yes!" Mink snapped at him. "I think I can handle one sick kid. Just – look, just let me do it, okay? I'll make sure it's done right. Then I'll walk back to Midgar. I don't feel like getting in that helicopter right now anyway. It stinks."

"But what about... him_?"_ asked Aviva, pointing at Zack's body.

"Gotta take it back," said Reno.

Mink stared at him. "Are you kidding me?"

"Just doing my job."

"But he's _dead_."

"Makes no difference to him then, does it?"

"I wouldn't give a dead _dog_ I liked to Hojo!"

Reno shrugged, beginning to turn away. "Dead or alive, that's our orders."

"I don't care!" cried Mink with passion. "There's no way I'm letting Hojo get his hands on him again. No one with a shred of human decency left in them would even think of it. We'll just have to get rid of the body. We could burn it. Your mag-rod would do – "

"Forget it. I'm not burning anything. That's company property. We retrieve it. End of story."

Mink squared her shoulders and looked him straight in the eye. "Do you call yourself a man?" she demanded. "You make me ashamed of myself – " And she threw up an arm, the Firaga in her bracer already glowing.

"Look!" Aviva cried, pointing at Zack's body. "Something's happening."

The steam swirling around Zack's body lay had taken on a greenish tinge, like the glow of a cure materia. Mink lowered her arm, puzzled. Aviva laughed, a manic sound. "He's not dead! Look, see? He's not dead. He's healing."

The wisps of steam coalesced into ribbons, fluttering, twisting, twining. Wherever they touched him, his skin dissolved, releasing a swarm of golden motes that spiralled upwards, as if on the draft of some intense heat, and vanished. Within seconds, nothing was left of Zack Fair but a pair of boots and an empty SOLDIER uniform, lying abandoned in a puddle of blood and rainwater.

* * *

_Thank you for reading, and sorry for the long delay. Work has been almost all-consuming. _


	53. Forget About Today Until Tomorrow

**CHAPTER 53: AND WE'LL FORGET ABOUT TODAY UNTIL TOMORROW**

_**In which Reno isn't sleepy, and there is no place he's going to.**_

* * *

All four Turks stood speechless, staring at the flattened remains of Zack's uniform, the gloves whose fingers were still bent to the shape of his hands, and the empty boots, standing to attention, held upright by the thick mud.

Reno was the first to break the silence. "Bloody hell," he muttered between clenched teeth, "I thought only monsters did that."

Mink's head jerked round. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Hey, back off," he bristled. "I'm just saying. _You _ever seen a human being evaporate before?"

She could not say she had_, _so she pressed her lips together and glared at him.

"All that mako in his blood," Rude ventured. "Breaks flesh down."

"Yeah. Could be," Reno nodded. "So… anyway, it looks like our little moral dilemma has taken care of itself. Think anybody'll believe it?"

"Oh, shut up," Mink snarled. Her hands clenched into fists. Turning her back on her colleagues, she strode off towards the edge of the butte, heading for the same path Zack's sick friend had taken.

"Hey!" Reno called after her.

She did not slacken her pace or give any sign that she had heard him. He turned to Rude, saying, "Well, _I'm_ not fucking running after her – "

"Don't try it!" Mink shouted over her shoulder. "Come anywhere near me, and I'll punch your face in, I swear it."

The three remaining Turks watched her walk away. She never once looked back. For several minutes after she was lost to sight, nobody spoke. Aviva glanced at Rude, then at Reno, and finally said, "Maybe I – "

"No," said Reno. "Just leave her."

He took out his official phone and called the duty desk. He and Skeeter spoke briefly; Reno's side of the conversation consisted mostly of _uh-huh, uh-huh._ Closing the phone, he said, "Tseng's all tied up with debriefings. Guess he won't be needing us for a while. Right, then…" He shoved the phone back into his pocket and fixed his eyes on Aviva. "Don't know about you, but I could do with a beer. Fuck report writing. Right, Veev? Let's clock off early for once in our shitty little lives."

Rude said, "The choppers have to go back."

Reno gave Rude the finger and turned on his heel, heading for the helicopter. Aviva heard Rude curse under his breath. He shoved her roughly in the shoulder, and jerked his chin in Reno's direction. "What?" she exclaimed. "You want _me_ to go with him?"

"He shouldn't be alone."

_But he's so angry, and I don't understand what's going on. Why are we coming apart like this? _ "You're his partner," she objected.

"Better if it's you."

"Why?"

"It just is."

This was starting to sound like a dream conversation. "Why is he angry with you?" she asked.

"It's not important."

_Is it because of Cissnei? _That was what Aviva really wanted to ask. She was afraid Reno might start talking to her about Cissnei – about Zack and Cissnei - and she knew she'd make a fool of herself if he did.

"I'll take your chopper back," Rude added, holding out his hand for the keys.

He sounded as if the thing were already decided. She didn't know how to refuse.

Reno had started the engine. The blades were turning.

"Go," said Rude.

Feeling she had no choice, Aviva began to run across the damp desert soil. "Keys!" Rude called after her. Briefly she turned, throwing them back to him, pleading as she did so, "You'll come find us, won't you?" He nodded. She sprinted the rest of the short distance to Reno's helicopter, yanked the door open and jumped into the co-pilot's seat.

"Nearly left without you," he said. "So, where to?"

"I don't know. Where do you want to go?"

"I dunno. Who cares? Just fuckin' pick somewhere, it's not hard."

Aviva thought fast. Somewhere noisy and lively would be best, somewhere full of distractions, somewhere like – "Wall Market?"

* * *

Tseng's first objective, upon leaving the boardroom, was to get Cissnei out of the building, for her own sake as much as anyone else's. Bringing her back to HQ had been a mistake on his part. He couldn't predict what would happen next, or how soon, but it was probably going to be bad, and there was no reason for Cissnei to get caught up in it.

He found her waiting for him in the surveillance room. Knox and Rosalind had given her coffee and were keeping her company. She looked terrible: exhausted, bedraggled, stunned. He told Rosalind to take her to the lockers for a shower, and then dress her in whatever clean civvies they could find. Twenty minutes later she reappeared wearing a rolled-up pair of Skeeter's jeans, loosely belted round the waist, a baggy hoodie, sneakers, and cheap sunglasses. Her uncombed curls had been pulled into a ponytail and stuffed under a Shinra mailman's peaked cap. With her slender build, even from quite close up she could pass as a post-room boy. Tseng gave her money and directions to Augusto's, and said he would meet her there within the hour.

Leaving Rosalind in charge, he went to the lockers and collected a holdall containing a set of his own civilian clothes. Getting himself to Augusto's was a complicated business. First he had to ditch his tail, a process that involved a circuitous route, several smallish windows, one little known back entrance, and the scaling of a wall in a dead-end alley. On any other day, the childishness of playing hide and seek with Scarlet's spies might have afforded him a little comic relief. Today he felt only mounting frustration at the time being wasted. Once he was sure he was alone, he went into the public toilets at the back of Robson's and changed into his street clothes: tan corduroy trousers and a cream polo-neck, a tweed blazer with brown leather patches on the elbows, wire rimmed spectacles, and a homburg hat under which he coiled his hair. He knew the disguise was a good one when Augusto's daughter opened the door and stared at him for several seconds before realising who he was.

Cissnei burst into frantic laughter when she saw him. "Oh, Tseng!" she cried when she could speak, "My god, what _do_ you look like?" She pressed a hand to her mouth. "Oh, shit, it's not funny. Is this what we've come to? Afraid to show our faces in our own city?"

The laughter turned to sobs. She covered her face with both hands. "All this time… everything we did… it was all for nothing. I failed, Tseng. He was always too far ahead of me. I failed him. I failed you. I'm so sorry."

The odds had been against her from the start, but one did not say such things. They smacked too much of excuses. Tseng thought of what Reeve had said - or rather, Reeve's robot cat: _They'll die no matter what you do._ A prescient remark, for an automaton.

In hindsight, his greatest mistake had been his arrogant refusal to believe it. Today's outcome was probably the best anyone could have reasonably hoped for. Aerith was out of immediate danger, Zack had been spared a return to Hojo's labs, and one could argue, if one wanted to split hairs, that Tseng had been spared another innocent life on his conscience, since he had not personally wielded a sword or fired a gun up on that butte this afternoon. But the fact remained that more than one man had died today, and many more had died in the weeks and months leading up to this day, all of them men, like Tseng, bound to Shinra. In the Turks' utilitarian terms, Zack had deserved to die as much as anyone did.

Tseng's many errors of judgement were obvious to him now. When Zack broke out of Nibelheim he should have sent Rude and Rosalind after him – or Reno – instead of Cissnei. Having failed to do that, he should have gone to Heidegger when Zack reappeared in Gongaga, and apprised him of the target's whereabouts. It would have been no more than what his job required him to do. He should never have left Cissnei to shoulder the burden alone; once Genesis was dead and the Old Man had given his last order regarding the runaways, he ought to have mobilized the Turks in force and ensured that they beat the army to the prize. Since, in hindsight, Zack was doomed to die, Tseng should have done what the Turks did best and used him as a tool for redeeming the department – or, if redemption was out of the question, then at least he could have bought them a little time.

His personal, emotional stake in Zack's survival had blinded him to the bigger picture. He'd turned his conscience into an excuse – used it as his justification for failing to make, in a timely manner, the hard decisions his team needed. Rufus had put his unerring finger on it when he said Tseng was being self-indulgent, and now, perhaps, they were all going to pay the price.

Augusto brought them the decanter of sherry. Tseng poured her a glass. "Drink this," he told her. Obediently she sat up, wiped her eyes with the cuff of her hoodie, and took a sip. Tseng said, "You did everything I asked you to do. Don't blame yourself."

"I know exactly who's to blame," she replied, "and it's not me. And it's not you either. Sometimes I think they – " she rolled her eyes upwards, meaning _those old men in the boardroom - _"get off on watching us die. They've run out of wars to kill us in, so they make us fight each other instead. And the awful thing is, there's a kind of method in their madness. It's like what they did to the science department when Gast was running the show. By keeping the Turks and the army and SOLDIER at each other's throats they make sure we won't band together against them. I'm sorry if that sounds like treason." Realising how perfunctory her apology sounded, she pulled a face and said, "Yeah, actually, I'm not sorry. And I don't feel like a traitor, either. Loyalty has to go both ways if it's to mean anything."

Tseng, thinking of Rufus, made no comment. Cissnei finished her sherry, put the glass down, and asked, "What's going to happen now, Boss?"

The wire-frame spectacles were pinching his nose. He took them off and said, "Hard to tell. Today's events have put Heidegger in a stronger position. I'm operating on the assumption that Scarlet will soon make a move against us, but I don't know whether her alliance with Heidegger is as solid as it used to be. So much depends on the Old Man. It's impossible to predict what line he's going to take from one day to the next. There are times when I get the sense that he's protecting us. We were 'his Turks' last week. I don't know if we still are. He was in a strange mood today. I expected… I thought he'd be pleased that the business with Zack had finally been resolved, but he went off on a tangent about the Commander. And Lazard."

"What did he say?"

"He asked if I thought Lazard was dead. I said yes."

"I'd feel sorrier for him," said Cissnei, "If he hadn't driven both of them to it."

"Sometimes, I pity him," Tseng admitted.

She stared at him as if he'd lost his mind. "I hope you don't let him see you feel that way," she said at last. "He won't thank you for it."

Conscious that he had let too much slip, Tseng poured her another sherry and steered their conversation back to practicalities. "Let's talk about what you're going to do now," he said. "You can stay here for the next couple of days, but no longer. Get as much rest as you can, and stay indoors, away from the windows. Augusto's an old friend of Charlie's; he's very valuable to us, and I don't want him or his family put in danger. Here – " He pulled an ID pass from his pocket and handed it over to her. "For the train. When you leave this place, go down to Wall Market and take a room there. Corneo won't readily tolerate P.S.M. conducting their business on his turf, so you shouldn't run into any trouble. All the same, don't do anything that might draw attention to yourself. That ID has a bank account attached to it, so money shouldn't be a problem. Call me when you have an address. Whatever you do, do not, under any circumstances, come back to the building."

Cissnei looked down at the ID in her hand. "Cicely Naylor," she read aloud. "Automotive Marketing? Seriously? Tseng, please – don't do this to me. I'm still part of this department, and what happens to one of us, happens to all of us. Don't send me away again. If we're in trouble, I don't want to run and hide."

"You're not hiding," Tseng replied. "You're being held in reserve. And that's an order."

She didn't try to argue with him further. Probably she had no energy left. Her eyes were bloodshot from exhaustion. Sleep was what she needed now, more than anything. No doubt she felt as if she'd never sleep again, but she was young and healthy, and nature would have its way. When she woke, Zack's death would have receded a little bit further into the past, and she would have moved just that little bit forward. For now, Tseng had done all he could. It was time for him to go; time to talk to Rufus. He stood up, legs feeling suddenly leaden. "Get some rest," he told her.

"You too, Boss."

"I'll sleep when I'm dead. Cissnei, I don't know when I'll see you again, so… take care."

At the front door he stopped to prepare himself. The wire-rimmed glasses went back on his nose. He turned up his collar. Opening the door, he gave the homburg one final tug, pulling its brim lower to cover the mark on his forehead. Then he stepped out into the street.

* * *

Reno put the helicopter down in a patch of cleared ground just outside the gates to the Market. He and Aviva climbed out, and he locked it. A thuggish-looking teenager was leaning idly against a nearby wall, his hair partly shaved and partly braided in a style that proclaimed his allegiance to Don Corneo. Reno called him over. "Watch the old girl for me," he said. "And there better not be any parts missing when I get back. Give him some money, Veev. More than that; jeez, make it worth the guy's while." A hundred gil changed hands, and the two of them set off at a fast clip, Aviva breaking into a trot to keep pace with Reno's loping stride.

"Do you really think we ought to just leave it like that?" she asked, meaning the helicopter.

"Like I give a shit," he replied.

Aviva swallowed a retort, and decided to concentrate on keeping up with him. He moved as if he had some specific destination in mind. As soon as they passed through the Market gate he led her left, then right, then left again into a lane dominated by the flashing neon lights of a pachinko parlour. Its heavy plate glass doors were fitted with chrome handles; Reno's fingers closed around one, and he began to pull. "You wait out here," he told her. Before she could object, or ask how long he intended to be, he had gone inside, the long tail of his hair flicking through the door as it closed behind him.

Aviva pressed her nose against the glass, following him with her eyes as he made his way between the rows of pinball slot machines. The place was almost empty. She counted five customers, all men, sitting far apart from each other, bodies slumped in their seats, watching the movements of the dropping balls with a quiet desperation. When Reno reached the far end of the shop, an elderly woman came out of the back room. She greeted the Turk like a long-lost child, kissing him on both cheeks, then ushered him into her office and shut the door.

There was nothing for it now. Aviva would have to wait. Never mind that every gut instinct was warning her to run, run away as fast as she could from the trouble she could sense bearing down on them like an express train; Reno was expecting her to be here when he came out, and she wasn't going to let him down, even if she had to wait all night.

Turning around, she folded her arms and began to take stock of her surroundings. This part of the slums was deep under the plate, close to the pillar. It was too late to be afternoon, too early to be evening; most of the bars were not yet open. Up the street to her left Aviva could see a chemist's, and beyond it, a pawn shop. To her right was a barbershop, its red and white pole spinning hypnotically. Across the road, a large, stuffed Nibel bear stood guard outside a tobacconists. The shop next door was a tattoo parlour called 'Magnolia Body Art', where, according to the sign in their window, she could have her nipples pierced 'while-u-wait'. Aviva longed to show that sign to Reno. Hopefully, when he came out again he'd be more in the mood to laugh with her at such absurdities.

_Hopefully he won't keep me waiting here so long that I'd have time to get my nipples pierced. _ Then again, she had no idea how long nipple piercing took. Maybe it was quick and painless, like having your ears pierced. Did they even bother with anaesthetic? She wondered what kind of gun they would use, and how much blood there would be. Zack Fair had shed a lot of blood, but still, she would have expected more. Had he felt the pain of each bullet as pierced his body? Did someone like him even feel pain like a normal person? She hoped not, because if he did, it must have been an agonizing way to die, slowly bleeding to death while his flesh kept healing over and over and over -

Aviva was freed from this train of thought by the sound of her phone ringing. It was Rude, calling to tell her he'd arrived back at HQ. He said he'd be coming down to join them as soon as he could get away, but he sounded like he wished he didn't have to.

He hung up. She put the phone away. The pachinko parlour door opened behind her, emitting a burst of jangling noise. She turned around. "Where to now?" asked Reno. He wasn't enunciating too clearly. A nut-sized lump distended his cheek, and a smouldering roll-up dangled from his lower lip. It smelt of loco weed.

Aviva wanted to say, 'I don't know, Reno. Where do you want to go?' but that hadn't gone over so well last time. _Food would be good_, she thought: something greasy and stodgy to line his stomach. Down the road beyond the porno shop she could see a sign for a pizzeria. She took him to it, and he seemed perfectly happy to be led.

He let her do the ordering. She chose things she knew he liked: anchovies, pepperoni, hot chili peppers. He asked for a beer. It came in the largest mug she had ever seen, at least a quart, if not more. When the food arrived he took a slice and pushed the rest over to her, saying, "Eat up, runt." Aviva stole a quick glance at his face. She was trying to monitor his eyes for signs of intoxication without appearing to do so, but so far, he looked as sober as ever. The lump in his cheek was gone. She wondered what it had been.

"Good?" he asked, meaning the pizza she was struggling to eat. She hatedanchovies. She hoped he wouldn't notice.

"Too much," she said. "Help me out here."

He took another slice, but he didn't really want it, and left it on his plate after a couple of bites. Soon the giant mug of beer was empty. Reno set it down with an air of finality and said, "Any more of those and I'll be pissing all night. You done, Veev?"

Half the pizza had been eaten. "Done," she said.

"Then let's go find a bar. I'll let you pick the first one."

These, she felt, were ominous words.

He would start getting snarky if she didn't make a quick decision, so she chose a place at random in the very next street they came to, a tiny bar not much wider than the door through which they entered, with room for about a dozen patrons. Reno and Aviva were the first: the bartender had just opened up. Reno ordered a double vodka. Aviva ordered a tonic water.

"Fuck that," he said, fixing her with his penetrating stare. "Are you babysitting me?"

"No!" she lied indignantly.

"Then don't be a wet blanket. Bartender, put shot of vodka in it."

The bartender looked at her. She nodded, wishing now she'd asked for a lager. Reno would have let that pass. She could see this night was shaping up to be a marathon, and she couldn't hold her liquor like he could. She'd be passing out on the floor long before he lost the ability to shoot straight. In fact, Aviva could not remember the last time she'd seen Reno well and truly plastered. After so many years of drinking and smoking and potions and drugs and so much exposure to materia, his body must have developed an inhuman degree of resistance. Probably he was so pickled nothing could knock him off his feet. Probably you could shoot him full of holes and his body would just suck up those bullets, and when he died he'd dissolve in a haze of corrosive green -

"Veev." Reno's hand closed round her wrist. "Think about something else. Talk to me."

"About what?"

"I dunno. Anything. Like… read any good books lately?"

"I don't really read much."

"C'mon, you can do better than that."

"I saw a movie last week," she offered.

"Yeah? Who'd you go with? A hot date, I hope."

"Just Roz and me. It was that war movie. 'Adamantine.'"

"Any good?"

"Not really. The guy playing Sephiroth was all wrong. He didn't give off that, you know, presence. And the plot was so stupid. I got bored and fell sleep. I don't know why, but for some reason I always sleep really well in cinemas. I think it's the combination of the darkness and the voices. It's sort of soothing - like, you know, when you're a little kid tucked up in bed and the grownups are down in the kitchen talking? And the seats are so velvety and cosy. Sometimes I think what would be really nice would be to go to one of those all-night back-to-back moviethons and just sleep right the way through it."

Reno didn't reply. Aviva realised he'd stopped listening. His glass of vodka was empty; she'd barely started on hers. From his top pocket he took another roll-up of weed and lit it. His fingers drummed on the countertop.

"This place is too quiet," he said. "There's a pool hall round the corner. Drink up and let's go."

The clientele at the pool hall were mostly men, and from the looks of them Aviva was pretty sure that they'd been drinking steadily ever since lunchtime. Their loud voices echoed off the low ceiling, punctuated by the clack of ball against ball. Clouds of smoke hung in layers over the green baize tables. Aside from Aviva, the only women in the place were two long-legged teenagers sitting at the other end of the bar, dressed in short skirts, spangly tank tops and impossibly high heels. They looked her up and down and giggled together; she felt acutely conscious of the stained suit she was wearing, the dried sweat in her armpits, the badlands dust streaking her face.

"I'm going to the ladies," she told Reno.

Using her fingers, she combed the worst of the grit from her hair, and washed her face and hands with cold water. When she returned, the old jukebox beside the bar was playing a song that had been popular before she was born, and Reno was halfway through a game of pool with one of Corneo's flunkeys. A drink was waiting for her. Aviva picked it up, took a sip, and cursed inwardly. He'd ordered her a double.

Several hours passed. Aviva perched on a barstool, spinning out her vodka tonics while Reno won game after game. He moved so fast he was lining up the next shot before the previous ball had dropped into the pocket. His calculation of trajectories was impeccable: he pulled off strings of doubles, and almost never missed a plant. "You're just showing off," she told him when he came to join her in one of the breaks between games. "You'll need to hustle more if you ever want to make a living at it."

"I do enough hustling in my day job, thanks," he replied with a grin. His pool cue lay cradled against his shoulder. In his hand was another double vodka, his seventh tonight – or maybe it was his eighth; Aviva was finding it difficult to keep track. She wondered what could be keeping Rude so long.

A hungry-looking young man with tattoos up both forearms came lounging over to them, walking on the balls of his feet. She assumed it was Reno he wanted, but instead found herself being challenged to a game. Reno barked with laughter. "Man, you don't know what you're letting yourself in for. This one might look small, but she's a firecracker. Well, go on, Half-Pint, knock 'im dead. The pride of the Turks is at stake here." Leaning so close that she could smell the alcohol on his breath, he added in a loud whisper, "I think that guy fancies you, Veev."

Embarrassment burned right to the tips of her ears. The youth threw a look at his friends, who were sitting together, sniggering, at a table not far away. _They dared him_, she realised.

With a grin and a thumbs up, Reno handed her his cue. Aviva hopped down from the barstool, and discovered she was drunker than she'd bargained for: her knees felt distinctly wobbly._ Don't be a wimp,_ she scolded herself. _He's watching you_. Normally the thought would have been enough to turn her into a fumbling mess of nerves. Tonight, fortified by four vodka tonics, she was beginning to feel indestructible. She potted two balls straight off the break, and in less than a dozen turns she had won her game. Reno was the only one who didn't look surprised.

"You're a credit to my teaching, little one." He gave her shoulders a congratulatory squeeze. "Okay, this was fun, but I'm done here. Want some food? _Ho-Chu's _not far. I could murder a curry. Come on."

Wall Market had woken up while they were inside the pool hall. All the bars were open now, and the streets were filled with people. The air smelt of hot cooking fat and caramelised sugar, unwashed bodies, woodsmoke, sweet pungent loco weed. Here and there tight-knit gaggles of salarymen in suits, come to the slums on a corporate adventure, clustered round restaurant windows, reading the menu cards. A lone foolish tourist with a camera round his neck – an out-of-towner, by the look of him – stood in the middle of the road trying to take a picture. Aviva reckoned that expensive camera would be in someone else's hands before the night was done. Around him flowed a stream of locals: workers stopping for a drink on their way home, friends out window-shopping, families with kids eating hot dogs or licking ice creams. Lovers of every gender and pairing walked along holding hands, or made out in darkened doorways. Everywhere Aviva looked she saw street hawkers and beggars, shoplifters and pickpockets, feral children with sticky fingers, pimps, drug-dealers, black-marketeers, white-slavers, and every sort of prostitute imaginable. Even if she couldn't actually _see _them, they were certainly visible to her imagination; she knew they were lurking somewhere close by.

At the top of the street a blind busker was making music, blowing into his harmonica and shaking a tambourine. Aviva dropped a coin into his cup. Someone who knew Reno's name (but who _didn't_ know Reno's name?) called to them over the hubbub of the street. She looked round, and saw a hairy, barrel-chested man, wearing nothing but a black satin jock-strap, a leather gimp mask, and some chains, standing at the entrance to a bondage shop on the other side of the road. Shouting at the top of his lungs, he invited the Turks to come inside, offering them a two-for-one discount. "You still couldn't afford us," Reno shouted back. The tout thought this was hilarious: he roared with laughter, and slapped his great round beer belly, making it quiver like a furry blancmange.

"You know what's great about this place?" said Reno to Aviva. "The way the people here don't shit themselves at the sight of us." Suddenly he stopped in his tracks. "Oh, hey – look!"

"What?"

"Crane game – " And he was off, darting through the crowds to press his face against the window of an amusement arcade. Aviva elbowed her way after him. "Look," he said. "Moogles. Want me to get you one?"

"It's okay – "

"C'mon, you're a sucker for those things. You name the colour, I betcha I can get it on my first go. For I am the master of the claw…"

Five minutes later they were back on the street, one powder-blue plush moogle tucked under Aviva's arm, where it pressed uncomfortably against her gun holster. But Reno wasn't finished with his detours yet. First he nipped down an ally to relieve himself. Then, as they were passing a Wutaian herbalist's, he muttered, "Oh, yeah," to himself, like he'd forgotten something, tapped her on the shoulder, said, "Hang on," and ducked inside through the banners hanging in the shop doorway. Aviva thought about following him, but decided against it. She didn't want to be an aggravation. Instead, she took out her phone and called Rude.

"What's taking you so long?" she demanded.

He told her Shinra had shut down the railway system due to a terrorist alert. He'd been forced to disembark, and was taking the service stairs down the central pillar. "We're going to Ho-Chu's," she told him, "Please hurry. Gotta go - " She managed to get her phone out of sight just before Reno rejoined her.

The clapboard front of the curry house was painted candy pink, with the words "_Ho-Chu Hungry Hungry"_ drawn over the doorway in big purple letters. Reno shouldered his way inside through the bead curtain, followed by Aviva, who immediately felt the change in temperature: the place was heaving with customers, the curry–laden air sweltering from their body heat. By the time she and Reno reached the bar, the proprietor, Ho-Chu himself, a stout, swarthy Mideelian with a wide mouth and a handlebar moustache, had been told of their arrival, and came out to greet them. If they would give him five minutes, he said, he could arrange a private room away from the crush. Meanwhile, would they care for something to drink? On the house?

"I'll have a bottle of Pfeiffers," said Reno. "And a vodka tonic for the little one."

Ho-Chu bustled off. The bartender produced Reno's bottle from under the counter, and gave him a glass. Then he mixed Aviva's drink, added a miniature paper umbrella, and presented it to her with a elaborate flourish that set her off in a fit of giggles.

"Hey, you know what would be really funny?" said Reno, unscrewing his bottle cap.

"What?"

"What?" he mimicked. "Hey, what are you looking at me for, Half-pint? I'm asking _you_."

"But I don't know. I thought you did. "

"Me?" he laughed. "I got no fucking idea. _That's_ what's funny."

While Aviva was still puzzling over this, Ho-Chu reappeared on the other side of the bar. "Come this way," he said, lifting the counter for them to pass through. They followed him into the back of the restaurant, where their room had been prepared. It was warm and windowless and very small, about the size of the departmental broom cupboard. Ho-chu apologized profusely for these deficiencies. "It'll do," said Reno, putting two hundred gil into his hand. Ho-chu bowed, went out, and shut the door.

"I like it," said Aviva. "It's cosy." A low rattan table with a glass top stood in the middle of the room, and the remainder of the floor was completely covered by plump cushions in mismatched, colourful patterns. A single lightbulb, painted red, dangled overhead, filling the small space with a gentle pink glow. Everything smelt spicy. Aviva took off her shoes, stepped over the table and sat down crosslegged with her back against the wall, cuddling the plush moogle in her lap.

Reno sat opposite her and started emptying his pockets. A crumpled packet of Malboros, loose tobacco, skins, weed, a box of Shinra 'Imp' brand matches, two Shinra X-Tra-Strong potions, ether tablets, a baggy of what looked like clay marbles but which she knew were Dragon Fangs, and thirty prescription-strength hypers in a bottle with a child-proof cap: he lined them all up on the table in front of her. Aviva wondered why he was doing this. Maybe if she had another drink, she would feel brave enough to ask.

He opened the bottle of hypers, shook two into his hand, offered them to her.

She shook her head vigorously. "No, thanks."

"Suit yourself." Reno swallowed them, then shrugged off his jacket, threw it into the corner, and flung himself full-length on the pillows, arms crossed behind his head. He lay like this for perhaps thirty seconds, jiggling his foot. Then he said, "Fuck. I need to pee again," and was up and out the door with the fluidity of an eel. Ten seconds later a waitress came in with a bowl of poppadoms. She put them on the table and left. Aviva pulled out her phone.

"Rude? Where are you now?"

"Look, I'm doing my best."

"He's got all this stuff."

"What stuff?"

"Everything. He's been taking hypers and weed and I don't know what all else."

"How many?"

"I don't know. Lots."

"Can he still walk?"

"He seems okay, but – I'm worried. I feel like he's going to do something. Can't you hurry?"

"I'll be twenty minutes."

This time she didn't manage to get her phone out of sight before Reno slipped back into the room. "Who was that?' he asked as he set to work on a roll-up. "Tseng?"

He asked this in such a strange tone of voice, as if he was telling a joke but didn't expect her to get it, a private joke that only he would find funny. Or maybe… maybe it only _sounded_ strange because she wasn't used to hearing him call Tseng 'Tseng' instead of 'Boss'.

"No," she said.

"Yeah, didn't think so. He's got bigger fish to fry. Was your boyfriend checking up on you?"

"I don't have a boyfriend."

"Well, why the fuck not? You're fit and you're not ugly. If Hunter can get a boyfriend, you can too. You're letting the side down, Veev. What's the problem? Are you too picky?"

"I guess… something like that." Hastily she grabbed her drink and tossed it down.

"Oh, god, you're not into chicks, are you?"

"No!"

"Yeah, I didn't think so. But I've been wrong before."

The carefulness with which he pronounced each word - the slow deliberation of his movements as he assembled the spliff – his slack facial muscles, and his glassy eyes – all these things betrayed the fact that he was much more thoroughly wasted than she'd originally supposed.

"Yeah," he said. "I got it all wrong. What an idiot, eh? I guess the joke's on me. But here's the thing, Veev. Here's the thing. You spend half your life working with someone, you'd think there'd be no secrets left, right? You think you know them inside out. In any given situation you can predict exactly what they'd do. You know them so well you could practically finish their fucking sentences for them. And you know that whatever shit happens, whoever else screws you over, they'll always have your back. And then they go and do something that's so far outside of anything you'd ever have thought possible that it blows your fucking world apart."

She wanted to say, _is that why you're being like this?_, but she couldn't wrap her tongue around the words. More drink might help. She reached for her glass. To her surprise, it was empty. She had no memory of drinking it, and looked at Reno, wondering if he'd somehow stolen it without her noticing. He pushed his bottle of vodka her way. Aviva poured out two fingers and drank it in one gulp.

Very slowly and solemnly he told her, "I think I may have to kill someone."

"Who?"

Reno tried to look her in the eye, but failed. His own eyes wouldn't stay focused. "God," he slurred, "You've got no idea what I'm talking about, do you?"

Not exactly, but she had a shortlist. Cissnei was right at the top of it, and Zack Fair, too - except he was dead already. Was Rude the culprit? Had he and Reno had some kind of bust-up? Was that why Rude had forced her to come with Reno tonight? Must have been one hell of a fight. Maybe that's why Rude was taking so long to get there. Maybe the fight had been so bad, and Rude was so pissed off, that he wasn't planning to show up at all. Ever. She was going to be all alone with Reno for the rest of the night. A frightening prospect, but also… exciting.

Reno took a match from the box, struck it, and lit his spliff. Closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply. She thought his face looked beautiful when he did that.

"Reno," she began, "I – "

"Want some?" He held out the joint.

Aviva shook her head. She'd seen what he'd put into it: tobacco, dope, loco weed, and half a tranquilizer crumbled to dust under his thumbnail. The mere thought of having all that coursing through her bloodstream was enough to make her feel dizzy. Very dizzy.

"You're so naïve, Veev," he laughed. "I used to think you'd grow out of it, but now…. Now, I think you know exactly what you're doing. It's like your version of Rude's shades. There are some things you just fucking refuse to see."

Her head was spinning. Her ears were ringing. Damn. What had Reno just said? She'd had a reply on the tip of her tongue, and now she'd forgotten it.

"It's so hot in here," she said.

"Take your jacket off, nitwit."

The jacket didn't come off without a fight. Somehow the sleeves kept tying themselves into knots. Once she'd finally beaten it into submission she decided to get rid of the tie as well. This was more of a challenge. Her hands seemed to have grown an extra pair of thumbs, and Reno's giggling was throwing her off her stride.

"You are so drunk," he informed her.

The door opened and the waitress came in carrying a tray of food. She put one bowl of curry in front of Reno, the other in front of Aviva, and added a large carafe of very cold water and two tall tumblers filled with ice cubes. Aviva grabbed for the water, poured off a glassful and drank it noisily, thirstily. Reno shook his head.

"You'll make yourself sick if you do that," he said. "Eat."

It might have been the smell of the curry, or it might have been all the second-hand smoke she'd absorbed from his spliffs, but Aviva suddenly realised she was starving. Eagerly she began to tuck in. So consumed was she by the pleasures of eating that she'd almost finished her bowl before she looked up and realised Reno hadn't touched his.

He was leaning back on one elbow, the long red tail of his hair falling across his chest. With his other hand he held a ball of dragon fang up to the light, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger. Then, like a magician, he made it disappear. He showed her his palm – empty – and the sinewy back of his hand. He wiggled the tips of his long fingers. "Nothing up my sleeve," he grinned.

"Where's it gone?" she asked.

Reno spread his hand wide, and the little ball of crude materia dropped with a dull _plunk _onto the table. He'd hidden it in the fold of skin between his ring finger and pinky.

"Prestidigitation," he told her, licking the residue from his thumb. "Mozo taught me that."

The strong chilies in the curry had cleared her head a little. She remembered now what she wanted to say. "Reno, can't you stop?"

"Stop what?"

"This. I know what you're trying to do, but honestly, I don't think you _can_. Any normal person would be in a coma by now if they'd taken everything you've taken tonight. That's the body's natural defenses, isn't it? If you start filling it with toxic gunk it'll react by knocking you out before you can do too much permanent damage. But you – all the stuff you've been taking all these years means you've built up too much tolerance. It's like people who can't feel pain. They don't know when they're hurt. I'm afraid that if you don't stop now, you'll pass the point of no return. Like, soon. You could actually kill yourself."

"That," said Reno, taking out a match and striking it, "Is the stupidest fucking theory I ever heard."

"Is it?"

"You don't understand anything."

Aviva bowed her head. "I'm sorry."

"Oh god, don't start apologizing."

She bit her lip so as not to say 'sorry' again.

Reno brought the burning match closer to his face, his eyes crossing a little as he stared into the heart of its flame. The heat and light flowed upwards; the flame could not find its way down the thin splinter of wood. It sputtered and went out.

"I've got a stupid theory for you," he said. "Get this: the V.P. says that when we die our souls all flow together into some big planet-sized soul and then we get reborn as a fucking tree or sahagin or some bollocks like that."

"That's the Lifestream theory."

"So it is, little miss smartypants. And guess what else the V.P. says? He says the mako _is_ the Lifestream."

"He thinks it's real?"

"Am I a fucking mind-reader? I have no idea what the little shit _thinks, _all I know is that's what he told Tseng and Tseng, apparently, not that you can ever be sure what's going on behind that mask he calls his face, believes it. Unless he was lying, which he easily could have been. Rude says he believes it. And Knox. And Roz. I wasn't supposed to tell you."

She had no idea how to respond to any of that.

"Veev," said Reno earnestly, "What do you think happens to people when they die?"

"I don't know -"

"I didn't ask what you know. Fuck, nobody _knows_. I asked what you think. Do you think that people have souls?"

"I don't - well, I guess, maybe…."

"Because it's not like switching off a car, is it? Or turning off a light. Dead things look different. Empty. Used up. Like this match here." With a flick of his thumb he sent it across the room.

"I think maybe some people have souls," she decided.

"You think Zack did? You think that's what we saw?"

Now that Aviva came to think of it, those swirls of steam coming off Zack Fair's dissolving body _had_ looked a lot like mako fumes boiling up from the depths of a reactor. "Well…maybe."

_Charlie had a soul_, she thought. _I know that for sure._

"You think I do?" asked Reno.

_But yours wouldn't look like mako. Yours would be a bolt of lightning._

"Yes," she said with certainty.

"And what about this planet? Do you think the planet has a soul?"

"A planet's not a person."

"I touched it," said Reno, "I put my hand on it, this afternoon – "

The door opened. A bulky figure stood in the doorway, blocking the light. "Here you are," Rude rumbled.

Reno turned an indignant face to Aviva. "That's who you were calling? Why? What do we need him for? We were having fun."

"I'm hungry," said Rude, sitting down. The tiny room that had been so intimate moments before suddenly felt cramped. Rude pointed at Reno's bowl of curry, cold and congealed. "Are you eating that?"

"We were about to leave," said Reno.

"Where to?"

"The Honeybee. I feel like getting laid."

"What about Veev?"

"I was going to buy her a lollipop. She can watch the floorshow. She prefers chicks anyway, she just told me so."

"Trains aren't running," said Rude.

"You want the chopper keys?" asked Reno as he threw them.

Rude had anticipated his partner's move: his hand was already poised to plucked the keys from mid-air. He stowed them in his top pocket. "Still coming with you," he said. "Just let me eat."

Rude shoveled a heaped spoonful of curry and rice into his mouth and began to chew it with the same slow thoroughness he applied to all his actions. Reno sighed theatrically. Reaching for the vodka bottle, he poured three fingers into Aviva's glass, adding some half-melted ice that he'd dug out of the water carafe. He unscrewed the hyper pills, dropped two into his hand, put them on the back of his tongue, and washed them down with vodka straight from the bottle. Aviva saw the muscles working in his throat as he swallowed. She also saw that behind those sunglasses, Rude was keeping a close eye on every move Reno made.

* * *

_Yes, I'm a Bob Dylan fan._

_This chapter and the next two were originally one big chapter. They are mostly a single continuous flow of events, and should be taken together, which is why I'm posting them all at the same time._

_Thank you all for reading, and many thanks for the reviews, alerts and favourites. They're very encouraging._


	54. Regarding Curiosity and the Cat

**CHAPTER 54: REGARDING CURIOSITY AND THE CAT**

_**In which Rude is resourceful, and Aviva makes a confession**_

* * *

Walking into the Rosebud Revuebar at the Honeybee Inn was like walking slap into a solid wall of heat and noise. Aviva's stomach immediately began to churn. As the trainee Honeybee led them to their table, she tried taking deep breaths, but the knowledge that she was inhaling the exhalations of dozens of strangers, hot from their lungs, humid with perspiration, and dirty with cigar smoke, did nothing to make her feel better. Gratefully she sank into her seat, though what she really wanted was to lie face down on the thick red carpet. The air was bound to be cooler down there.

"They need to turn on the air conditioning," she said.

"It is on," said the Honeybee, giving her a funny look.

"You OK, Veev?" asked Reno.

"How much did you give her?" Rude asked him.

"Hey, c'mon. She's hardly had anything."

"Right. You're drunker than she is."

"And you're uglier than I am, but there's no materia for that. Here, Veev, take this." Reno unscrewed the top from one of his potions and handed it to her. She swallowed it as fast as she could, trying to get it down her throat before her taste buds could register its bitterness. She was sure she was going to throw up.

"We should take her out of here," said Rude.

"But she doesn't want to go," said Reno. "You want to stay with Uncle Reno, don't you, Runt?"

Gamely Aviva nodded.

"See? Man, I'm thirsty. I'll have a pint of Old Ramuh," Reno told the waitress.

"Same for me," said Rude, "And a black coffee."

"You got it," the Honeybee replied, winking at Rude. As she walked away, she put a little swing into her hips, jiggling her stinger provocatively.

"Looks like you're in with a chance there," Reno observed. "Wonders will never cease."

The potion had helped to settle Aviva's stomach. Feeling a little brighter, she began to look around, but there was nothing new to see; nothing had changed since the last time she was here, four months ago, on a bodyguarding assignment with the President. The room was a hexagon, like a cell from a honeycomb, and felt smaller than it really was because it was so crowded. Curtains of heavy gold brocade hung all the way around the walls, but did little to absorb the noise. The high vaulted ceiling, frescoed with soft porn scenes in pastel hues, rested on the heads of several dozen gilded pillars carved in the shape of voluptuous young women. Chandeliers hung low over every table, their soft light shimmering as they swayed gently on their chains. Aviva had noticed last time that each of the cut-glass drops held a little rainbow. She'd spent a lot of time with her eyes averted, studying those chandeliers, so as not to have to look at what was happening on the stage.

Right now a dozen worker bees were up there performing a wiggle dance. They shook their velvet stingers and caressed their own bodies with every appearance of erotic enjoyment, despite the fact that nobody in the audience looked very interested. Aviva knew exactly what would happen next; she'd seen the whole show the last time she was here. Soon the music would pick up the beat, and then the queen would buzz in, strip down to her black and yellow g-string, select a partner from the line-up of gleaming oiled drones in bow ties, and an orgy of choreographed panting and gasping would ensue.

Aviva had wondered last time – and wondered again now; would always wonder – why anyone would pay to watch such fakery. The Old Man had certainly enjoyed himself, so much so that at the end of the evening he'd tucked a thousand-gil note under the queen's g-string. Aviva had cringed inwardly for her, but she wasn't proud of this feeling; she didn't want to start judging other women just because she'd been lucky and they hadn't. Besides, giving the money to someone who'd worked for it was better than using it to light a cigar, she supposed.

"This place keeps getting tackier and tackier," said Reno, plucking that one thought from the many in her mind. As he spoke, he took out the baggy of dragon fang and shook one into his palm.

Rude's big fist closed round Reno's hand. "You've had enough."

"Fuck you." Reno shook him off, shoved the dragon fang into his mouth, sucked it defiantly for a moment, and then stuck out his tongue to show Rude a grey ball of sludge.

"Grow up, man," said Rude.

"I feel sad," said Aviva.

"See what you've done to our little one?" Reno's sneer seemed to encompass them both. "You big bully."

Rude took the baggy into custody, scooping it from the table and putting it into his own pocket.

"I got more," said Reno.

"There are quicker ways," Rude told him.

"Stop talking out of your arse."

"Cissnei's gone. Tseng sent her out of the building."

Hearing these words, Aviva felt faint with relief.

"Do I look like I give a shit?" said Reno. "She can do what the fuck she likes. Fuck Tseng. I _told_ him. Did you see him? Was he there?"

Rude looked like he didn't want to answer. "No."

"Where was he?"

"Out."

"Where?"

"With Ciss."

"And where else?"

"Reno -"

"And where else?"

Back, forth, back, forth: they were making her head spin.

"Where is he right now, Rude?"

Rude seemed to deflate; Aviva couldn't think of any other way to put it. He said, "Down with Rufus."

Reno's face twisted. He looked like her stomach felt. "Yeah," he said, "I just bet he is."

"Guys," Aviva cried, "What are you talking about?"

"You didn't tell her?" said Rude.

"Tell me what? Rude, what?"

"How long have you known?" asked Reno.

"If she doesn't know – "

"What? What don't I know?"

"We should stop talking about this now -"

"No!" Reno slammed his fist on the table. "I know you see everything with those fucking x-ray specs, you two-faced bastard. You lied to me. You lied to me."

Silence fell on the tables around them. The Honeybees faltered in their dance. Everyone was looking at the Turks.

"Not now," Rude entreated softly.

"I'm going to kill him," said Reno.

"Reno – "

"I told him I would. Fucking little twisty piece of shit."

"Reno – "

"I warned him."

"_Reno," _growled Rude, rolling his eyes sideways.

Reno looked round. Their Honeybee was hovering nervously behind him, carrying a magnum of chilled champagne and three fluted glasses on a silver tray.

"What the hell?" said Reno.

"Excuse me, sir," she said, "But that military gentleman over there wanted you to have this, with his compliments."

All three of them turned to look where her finger was pointing, at a well-built, ruddy-faced man in his mid-thirties sitting at a table on the other side of the stage. His blond hair had been clipped very short, and he wore the uniform of a Shinra army colonel. The other men at his table were officers of similar rank. He smiled at the Turks, revealing excellent teeth, then got to his feet and raised his glass to them. His fellow officers followed suit.

"Viljoen," said Rude. He made it sound like a curse word.

"Fuck him. Rubbing our noses in it."

Rude said to the Honeybee, "Leave it."

"I'll kick his perfect fuckin' teeth in," said Reno.

The Honeybee set the tray on their table and scarpered.

Colonel Hugo Viljoen of the Garuda Regiment detached himself from his party and came weaving through the tables towards them, glass in hand.

"Be cool," Rude warned Reno.

"Gentlemen of the Department of Administrative Research," Viljoen began with a smile, "Oh – and, ah, lady. I see you've received the champagne. I hope it's to your liking. Some people find the _Wasserfallen_ a bit too dry for their tastes."

"Fuck off, you wanker," said Reno.

The Colonel's smile widened. "I'm sorry you're taking that attitude. This is a sincere token of our respect for all your hard work. A dangerous criminal was finally brought to justice today. Don't you want to celebrate with us?"

"You – you –" Reno struggled to find the right word - "Fucking tosspot. You screwed us over -"

"All's fair in love and war," said the Colonel. "What did you expect? Don't be a sore loser, Reno. People are watching."

Slowly, gracelessly, Reno rose to his feet, holding on to the table for balance. "I'm warning you, fuckface -"

"Yes? What?" Viljoen sneered. "What are you going to do to me, Turk? Throw up on my shoes? You're so drunk you can't even stand up straight. Been drowning your sorrows?"

Reno lurched forward, swinging wildly with his left fist. Aviva jumped up to stop him. She grabbed his arm, pulling him even further off-balance. Colonel Viljoen stepped aside, easily avoiding the blow, and the two Turks crashed to the floor in a tangle of flailing limbs.

"God, you're pathetic," said Viljoen, looking down at them. "You assholes think your suit and tie make you untouchable. But you know what? Those freaks in SOLDIER thought they were untouchable, too. We showed them. As for _you_… Well, the fact is we just don't like you. I lost two men down in Junon thanks to that jumped-up slanty-eyed flea you take orders from. The reputation of my entire regiment was dragged through the mud. You saw today what we do to men who get on the wrong side of us, so if I were you, losers, I'd start running, because you're next. Oh, and one more thing. My adjutant doesn't take kindly to having his sister threatened at gunpoint. He's pretty upset about it. Which means I'm pretty upset about it. In fact, I'm so upset that when I find out which of your tail-wagging little bitches was responsible I'm – hey," he broke off, staring hard at Aviva. His eyes narrowed. "You're the – "

Rude picked up the magnum of champagne and hit Colonel Viljoen over the head. Miraculously, the bottle did not break, but Viljoen's knees crumpled under him and he went down like a wet sandbag. A woman at the next table started shrieking. People around them began to rise from their seats. The Honeybees were already scattering for cover. Rude stretched down a hand to help Aviva stand.

Reno staggered to his feet, mag-rod switched on and buzzing for battle. Rude shook his head. "Don't make this worse," he said. "Let's go."

"Look behind you," said Reno.

Rude and Aviva swiveled round. Two of Viljoen's fellow officers had climbed up onto the stage and were coming at them. One was brandishing a chair; the other was wielding a broken bottle. Aviva grabbed a knife from the table. "No, Veev!" said Rude. "You can't kill them – "

Hot light flashed sizzling through the air. Aviva's hair stood on end. The bolt from Reno's EMR hit the two men and for a split second held them suspended in mid-leap, before flinging them backwards across the stage.

A roar of fury erupted from the officers' table as the five who'd remained sitting surged to their feet and came charging towards the Turks, shoving aside everything in their way: tables, pastry trolleys, patrons, Honeybees. One of the girls took a sharp elbow to the chest; she fell backwards, hit her head against the side of a table, and cried out in pain as she began to bleed. Seeing this, a bouncer who had come in to try to stop the fracas jumped up onto the nearest table and ran, leaping from table to table as if they were stepping stones, until he caught up with the officer responsible. Grabbing him by both lapels, the bouncer heaved him into the air and head-butted him, hard. Gouts of blood burst from the officer's nose. The bouncer dropped him to the floor, where he remained, dazed and moaning.

"Sweet," grinned Reno approvingly.

The next moment the bouncer's feet were knocked out from under him by the butt of a soldier's rifle. Reno' hand went for his pistol.

"Are you crazy?" Rude shouted. "No guns!"

It seemed to Aviva that everything was happening in slow motion. A Honeybee had picked up a chair and was swiping it at the head of the soldier who'd floored the bouncer. Two of Colonel Viljoen's friends flung themselves on Reno; the other two tackled Rude. Rude landed an uppercut on the chin of the first, driving him backwards, and rammed his elbow into the diaphragm of the second, who doubled over, retching. Reno wasn't doing quite so well. His drugged, drunken reflexes had slowed him down to the point where he was moving almost like a normal man. One of the officers kicked the EMR from his hand and sent it skittering out of reach. The other drilled a fist deep into his gut. Reno sank to his knees and curled up, wheezing loudly.

The fight had spread like panic through the room: wherever Aviva looked, people were throwing punches, trampling each other under foot, and, in the case of the Honeybees, scratching faces and pulling hair. Many of them seemed to be fighting to get out the doors; still others were fighting to get _in_. Nobody was paying any attention to Aviva. Did they think she was too small to be a threat? Hah - she'd show them. Down at her feet, Viljoen stirred, groaning. Aviva took the magnum of champagne from the table and hit him again.

"Reno!" cried a woman's voice. Aviva looked round and saw that one of the Honeybees had rescued his EMR. "Here!" she shouted, putting up her hand. The Honeybee lobbed it over. Aviva caught it just as someone's fist grabbed a handful of her jacket and lifted her feet off the floor. She snarled and kicked backwards, but couldn't make contact with solid flesh.

"Veev," gasped Reno. He'd managed to slither under one of the overturned tables. The two Garuda officers had taken hold of his ankles and were trying to drag him out. He kicked and cursed, but couldn't break free. Aviva threw him the EMR, aware that it would be of no use as long as the targets were touching him. So she kicked back again, and this time got a purchase on what felt like her captor's thigh. Coiling all her strength into her legs, she pushed off and twisted out of his grip. The moment she landed she kneed him in the balls so hard he doubled up, keening in pain. "Yeah!" she yelled, "Take that!" and swung round to help Reno. The officer closest to her was kneeling on the ground with his arse pointing straight in her direction, so she kicked him in the balls too, with equally satisfying results.

The other officer immediately released his hold on Reno's ankle and drew his gun.

Aviva could have sworn that every bone in the man's body lit up when Reno's bolt of electricity hit him.

He came crawling out from under the table, got to his feet, grabbed her face, and planted a big smacking kiss on her forehead. "Fuck, Veev," he laughed, "I fuckin' love you."

If only she could have died then.

"Stop playing around," said Rude, who had just cracked his two assailants' heads together and dropped them onto the floor. "Look."

More soldiers had forced their way in through the doors the bouncers were struggling to shut, and with their fists and the butts of their rifles they began to carve a path through the battlefield that the Honeybee's Rosebud Revuebar had become. One of them spotted the Turks, and pointed. All the soldiers turned in their direction. A howl of bloodlust went up.

"We have to leave," said Rude. "Now."

"You're such a fucking spoilsport," said Reno.

About fifteen metres away from them a length of gold brocade had been torn lose from its curtain rail, revealing a small door set in the wall. Rude took hold of Reno by the upper arms and frogmarched him over to the door, Aviva scrambling behind them. Rude had to take one hand off Reno in order to test the door handle. It opened, but in the same moment Reno, who had never stopped struggling, broke free and began to run back towards the fray. He had taken maybe a dozen steps when something small and dark came flying through the air. It landed between his feet, and exploded with a small 'pop' and a burst of purple smoke. Rude wasn't affected; he was standing just far enough away. Aviva reeled, but Rude caught her elbow and gave her a good sobering slap across the back of the head before she could hurt herself. Reno inhaled the full force of the confuse grenade. He spun around, his red ponytail streaming like a ribbon, and aimed his EMR at Rude.

"Don't!" Aviva screamed.

She could see that a part of him knew what was happening. He was trying to resist. His arm shook with the effort.

The soldiers were almost on them.

Suddenly her skin began to tingle. Somebody had cast materia on her.

God, she _hated_ the thought of going down without a fight -

And then everybody around her sank to the floor and closed their eyes, and there was silence.

Rude stooped to gather up the unconscious Reno. "Get his rod," he told her. "Hurry. This Sleep won't hold. Too many of them."

Out in the foyer people were battering with their fists on the barred doors. Aviva clutched Reno's EMR tightly to her chest. "This way," said Rude. He ushered her through the little doorway, then closed and bolted it behind them. Aviva fumbled in her pocket for a flashlight. They were in a narrow corridor, with what looked like cupboards on either side, and at the end, another door. This one was locked. Rude kicked a hole in it. They climbed through, and found themselves outside.

Fifty metres overhead, the lights on the underbelly of the plate twinkled like stars. "Can we go home now?" she asked him.

"No," he said.

"Oh." Though she didn't see why not. "Okay. Rude?"

"Sssh."

"How come I'm awake?"

"Barrier. Can't carry both of you."

Angry voices were coming closer. They would soon be found if they stayed here. "Follow me," he said. "Stay low."

Avoiding the busy streets and the bright lights, they slunk their way around the edge of Wall Market, through the darkest of alleys, scattering rats and stepping over the occasional drunkard, until, finally, they emerged into the shadows at the back of the In'N'Out Travellers' Motel. Reno groaned and tried to lift his head; Rude cast Sleep on him again, then laid him down on the ground and left Aviva to stand guard while he went to find them a room. Her legs were beginning to feel very tired. She needed to sit down. Just for a minute. Her heavy head longed to rest its weight on something. She closed her eyes….

"Wake up," said Rude.

Lifting Reno into his arms, he led her round to the side of the hotel and showed her a window he had jimmied open. "You first," he whispered, crouching down to let her climb in over his shoulders. Getting Reno through the window posed more of a challenge, but with Aviva tugging and Rude pushing they eventually wrestled him inside. Rude brought up the rear, using his strong arms to lever himself up and over.

Aviva wanted to turn on the light, but Rude stopped her, pointing at the gap under the door as a reminder that if the light went on it could be seen from the hallway. A fluorescent security lamp on the building next door did something to relieve the darkness of the room; Aviva could see that it contained twin beds separated by a nightstand, and that there was an old braided rug on the floor. The shadowy bulk of a large wardrobe loomed in the far corner.

"Isn't this supposed to be a love hotel?" she asked Rude. The room didn't look very romantic.

Rude did not answer. Crouching down, he gathered Reno up off the floor, all lolling head and floppy limbs, and deposited him on the bed that was pushed against the wall.

Aviva said, "What if they rent this room to somebody else while we're in it? What if they come in and find us here?"

"I'll sort it," said Rude, crossing to the door. "Get his shoes off." He paused, listening for sounds of movement in the corridor. Hearing none, he opened the door, slipped through, and shut it behind him. Aviva presumed his intention was to pay the desk clerk up front, both for the room and to lie if anyone from PSM came looking for them. The clerk probably wouldn't need much persuading. Heidegger's army had never been popular in Wall Market, and since the brutal repression of the electricity riots earlier in the year, their credit had sunk to an all-time low. It would be hard to find anyone on Don Corneo's turf who'd willingly help a pack of drunken soldiers to hunt down a trio of Turks.

Aviva didn't know whether it was the lingering effects of the alcohol combined with the confuse grenade, or just sheer tiredness, but she was having tremendous difficulty untying the knots in Reno's bootlaces. Rude came back while she was still working at it. Putting both hands on her shoulders, he gently moved her aside and took over. First one shoe came off, then the other. Rude turned over each in turn and shook it vigorously. The second time he did this, a flick knife fell out. Rude put the knife in his pocket. Under Reno's right sock, a coil of wire was taped to his ankle. Rude removed this too. He worked Reno's arms loose from their sleeves, eased the jacket out from under him, emptied Reno's pockets into his own, and laid the folded jacket at the end of the bed. The gun holster and materia bracer came off next, then the shirt. Reno mumbled once, but he did not wake: Sleep still held him fast in its spell.

When Rude started on Reno's trousers, Aviva, guiltily ashamed to find herself torn between embarrassment and intense curiosity, blushed and turned her face away. Reno never wore underwear – at least, that was what he claimed. Was it really necessary for him to be stripped naked?

"Where's the mag-rod?" asked Rude, as he covered his partner with the bedclothes.

Aviva had put it down on the other bed when she was trying to untie Reno's shoelaces. "Hide it," Rude told her.

"Why?" she asked, but he did not answer. Carrying Reno's gun and materia, he went into the bathroom; she supposed he was looking for a place to hide them as well. But from whom? From Reno? There was nowhere in this bleak little room to hide anything from a Turk's sharp eyes.

Rude came back, still with the gun and materia in his hands. Sitting down on the end of Reno's bed, he picked up Reno's jacket and spread it over his lap. Then he rolled everything up inside it – gun, materia, EMR, clothes – and tied the sleeves in a knot to hold the bundle together. Only Reno's shoes were spared.

Aviva said, "What are you doing?"

"Keeping him out of trouble." Rude reached inside his suit, popped the Sleep materia loose and handed it to her. "If he starts getting difficult, knock him out."

"Me? What about you?"

"I'm going to see Corneo."

"What, now? You're leaving?"

"Gotta get this mess straightened out."

"But – what about Reno?"

"You look after him."

"But – but – the chopper – "

"I'll take care of it."

"I could take him back – "

Rude looked at her as if she was being stupid. Even in the half-light, with his sunglasses covering his eyes, she could feel that look of his. "Veev, you're too pissed to fly."

"I don't understand why we can't all go back."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because – " Rude hesitated. "He can't see Tseng like this."

Oh, god. _Tseng_. Aviva sank down despairingly on the other bed. Tseng was going to _kill_ them. They were so, so dead. "Rude, what are we going to do?"

"I'll sort it out. All you need to do is keep him here till I get back."

"When will you be back?"

"When I'm done." He stood up, and slung the bundle containing Reno's things across his shoulder. "I'll go the back way. Just in case."

"You won't be long, right?"

"I'll do my best," he rumbled, one leg already out the window. "Veev – "

"Yes?"

"He'll be okay with you. Just don't do anything stupid. And keep your heads down."

With that parting speech, he was gone, leaving her alone in a room in a Wall Market love hotel with a naked, unconscious Reno.

_This_, thought Aviva, _is the strangest day of my life._

He was dead to the world, lying on his back with his mouth slack and his eyelids half-open, showing the whites of his eyes. Rude had tucked him in like a little child, pulling the blankets up to his armpits, but had somehow forgotten to take his goggles off. She supposed they were so much a part of his face that it was easy to forget they _did_ come off; but surely he didn't sleep in them normally. How uncomfortable would that be?

Sliding off her own bed, she knelt beside him. Very slowly and carefully she eased the goggles from his head, and laid them on the bedside table.

"Hey," she whispered. "Reno?"

No response.

His face had completely relaxed. No trace was left of the anger and bitterness that had made him seem so much older than his years tonight. Rude had cast him into a sleep so deep that nothing, neither sensation nor memory, nor even dreams, could disturb it. If Aviva wanted to, she could sit here and gaze at him all night long. He would never know.

This thought gave her a strange feeling. She had never been able to look her fill before; she'd always been afraid that someone might catch her staring, or that he might suddenly turn around and see her feelings for him written on her face. For years and years she had longed to find out what the tattoos on his cheekbones felt like to touch, but she had never been brave enough to ask for permission to do so. She wasn't someone like Hunter, or Cissnei, who just laughed and did whatever she liked, touching whoever she wanted to touch without anybody ever objecting.

"Reno?" she said a little louder. "Can you hear me?"

He did not stir. Delicately, daringly, she lifted her hand to his face, and traced one finger along the line of his cheekbone. The moment she touched his skin, her fingertip began to tingle with a kind of prickly shock that might, she thought, have been due to the static electricity in his body, or might equally well be the product of her own guilty imagination.

She turned his attention to his hair. It was a disgrace, unkempt and gritty with badlands dirt. She ran her hand up the side of his face to his hairline and began to comb the red tangles with her fingers, smoothing them backwards from his forehead. The last time she'd done this, he hadn't even begun to grow his ponytail, and she'd been high on Curaga. Now his ponytail reached to his waist, and his hair felt coarser than she remembered. Several loose strands had fallen across his face, catching on his eyelashes. She brushed them away.

"I love you," she said.

Her words fell into a well of silence.

Out in the streets a motorbike revved as it drove by, and a dog started barking. Down the hallway a door opened and shut. The plumbing in the wall rattled as someone upstairs flushed a toilet. Far away in the centre of Wall Market, music throbbed.

As she leaned closer, gazing intently into Reno's sleeping face, Aviva noticed that the skin around his left eye was beginning to look puffy. Someone must have landed a hard punch on him during the fight. By tomorrow he'd have a real shiner.

Still, at least he was still alive. Things could easily have been so much worse, what with the cocktail of drink and drugs he'd been consuming and the army out for their blood. If Rude hadn't intervened with the champagne bottle, Colonel Viljoen might have killed both of them as they lay tangled drunkenly together on the floor. God, how useless she'd been! Rude had sent her after Reno in the first place so she could stop him from self-destructing, and what had she done instead? Gotten herself so tanked she could hardly put two words together. It was only thanks to Rude's quick thinking that she and Reno still _had_ a tomorrow – though, judging by the single-mindedness with which Reno had gone spiraling downwards tonight, she didn't know how happy he was going to be when he woke up in the morning and realised he was still alive.

It was all Mink's fault, Aviva decided. She'd set him off. He'd been fine until she'd decided to have a go at him, like he was personally to blame for every single thing that was wrong with Shinra. Like he wasn't dealing with problems of his own. Who did Mink think she was, anyway, acting all high and mighty and judging them like she was better than they were? It was as if all of a sudden she'd stopped being one of them – as if she'd looked at them, and looked at herself, and decided they had nothing in common and that all the years they'd worked and fought together meant nothing to her. _Do you call yourself a man, Reno? _Every time Aviva ran those words through her mind, she felt more deeply outraged. Turks just did not _say_ such things to each other – especially when in the very next breath Mink had gone on to do a complete one-eighty, lashing out at him for daring to suggest that maybe Zack Fair hadn't been entirely human, when it was obvious that all of them – even Mink – had been thinking the same thing.

Aviva laid her head on Reno's shoulder, and closed her eyes. It would be nice, she thought, to fall asleep like this. "Stupid Mink," she murmured. "If you're not a man, I don't know who is. Don't listen to her. Of course you're a man."

_And what's more, he's a naked man under those sheets_.

Where the hell had _that_ thought come from? Startled from her dreaminess, Aviva sat bolt upright and glanced around the room, half-expecting to see some grinning demon lurking in the shadows.

_Why not see for yourself_? it added insidiously .

What? No!

No, she couldn't possibly do that.

Could she?

_Sure you can. Look what you've done already: touching his face, stroking his hair._

But those were public places -

_Aw, c'mon, where's the harm? _

But she couldn't just – steal a look.

_Hey, it's nothing you haven't seen before._

That was true. She had twice accidentally caught passing glimpses of him when they were out on missions, living in close quarters - and once, when she was down in the gym, he'd come out of the showers unexpectedly, and his towel had slipped. She'd made a point of quickly looking in the other direction and pretending she hadn't noticed, but that was more to spare herself the humiliation of having him comment on her red face than because she thought _he_ would be embarrassed.

This was different. He was fast asleep. He'd never know -

_Exactly. You can look for as long as you like._

Excitement fluttered in Aviva's stomach, a mingling of curiosity and trepidation. It was years since she'd seen one this close up. She'd always done her best to keep her eyes shut.

_But you're a woman now. Strong, remember? Don't you want to take back what was stolen from you? You have to start somewhere._

No. It wouldn't be right -

_ C'mon. Looking won't hurt you. This man would never hurt you. _

He wouldn't like it -

_Man, he won't care! Since when has Reno been bothered about keeping his privates private? How many women do you reckon he's shown it to? He's probably lost count! One more won't make much difference. Aw, c'mon, Veev_ –

It was like he was inside her head, wheedling, tempting. The curiosity was burning her up.

_C'mon Veev, you know you want to. C'mon, don't be a wimp._

Well…. Maybe just a quick peek, then.

Cautiously – very cautiously, as if afraid it might dart out and bite her – she took hold of the bedclothes and turned them back, exposing his long pale body to the room's half-light.

To tell the truth, it wasn't quite as big as she remembered. But then, those memories had been the stuff of a child's waking nightmares. This one wasn't like that at all. Curled up in its nest of red hair, it resembled nothing so much as a soft, sleeping animal. Not in the least bit fearsome. Quite the opposite, in fact. The thing was so naked, so defenceless, so much more vulnerable than she remembered, there was something almost – _endearing_, about it. Who would have guessed?

Behind her the curtains fluttered, as a rush of cool air blew through the open window. The breeze passed over Reno, ruffling his hair and raising goosebumps on his skin. He didn't move a muscle, but the little animal drowsing against his thigh twitched and stirred, and lifted its blunt head to look straight at Aviva with its one blind eye.

Appalled, she dropped and sheets and scuttled backwards. She couldn't believe she'd just done what she'd just done. What had possessed her? Trembling, hardly daring to breathe, she stared at him, certain that any moment now he would wake up and accuse her.

The little bedside clock ticked off the seconds. Her heartbeat sounded painfully loud. Suddenly, Reno's whole body twitched, and Aviva's heart jumped in her chest. He yawned like a cat, showing all his teeth, muttered something, rolled onto his side, and sank right back down into a deep sleep.

Another five minutes passed before Aviva felt safe enough to risk getting to her feet. She went into the bathroom, locked the door, stripped, and got into the shower, feeling all the time that if only she weren't a Turk she could have cried from the sheer shame of it. What made it worse was her certainty that he would laugh at her if he knew: laugh at her fright, and even more at her curiosity. _God, Veev, you're so naïve._ He was probably right, but she couldn't stop imagining how she would feel if she found out _he_ had been sneaking peeks at her naked body while she was unconscious. But of course he would never do such a thing, because he wasn't interested – No! that wasn't the reason! Well, maybe it would be part of the reason – but that wasn't the point. They were _partners_. They were supposed to be able to trust each other, even when they couldn't see what the other was doing. And now she felt like she'd stolen something from him that could never be given back.

A rough white towel was hanging on the curtain rail. She used it to dry herself, scrubbing her body fiercely all over. Then she got dressed in her bra and pants and her grubby, sweaty shirt; so strong was her need to cover herself up that she even debated putting her suit back on, heavily stained though it was with badlands mud, before deciding that she simply could not get between clean sheets wearing a pair of dirty trousers. On the way to her own bed she forced herself to go close enough to Reno's to check on his breathing. She was wondering whether she ought to cast Sleep on him again – since Rude had told her to – but to her relief the spell seemed to be holding fast. The thought of using attack materia on Reno was unbearable. She'd already done enough to him for one night.

Aviva crawled into her bed, turned her back towards Reno, and pulled the covers over her head. She was sure she wouldn't ever be able to fall asleep... right up until the moment when she did.


	55. Awakenings

**CHAPTER 55: AWAKENINGS**

_**In which Aviva receives several surprises.**_

* * *

The Vice-President's cat was riding on Aviva's shoulder, purring loudly and tickling her ear with its whiskery face. It felt nice – very nice, in a shivery, tingly way – but odd, because normally Mr Rufus' cat refused to let anyone but its master pick it up. Even before it had been Rufus's cat, when it was still the departmental cat, it had never been so openly affectionate with her, or anyone. The only reason it was cuddling with her now, then, must be because this was a dream -

Her eyes flew open and she was instantly wide awake, unsure of where she was but all too terrifyingly conscious of the other body, warm and solid, wrapped around her own. She would have screamed and lunged for her gun, but panic had locked her limbs. She couldn't breathe.

"Nnngh?" said Reno's voice in her ear.

Had it been any other man, she'd have driven an elbow straight into his ribs. Two things stopped her. The first was the fact that when she realised the man in her bed was Reno, she let go of the breath she'd been holding and, on a reflex, inhaled deeply, flooding her senses with the mingled smells of ozone, tobacco, and his sharp sweat, scents uniquely associated in her subconscious mind – and in her consciousness – with safety. Her muscles instinctively relaxed.

The second thing that stopped her from shoving him out of her bed was the realisation that he was still fast asleep.

He'd snuggled himself up tightly against her back, burying his face in the crook of her neck. One arm lay draped around her waist; the other was doubled up between their two bodies, long fingers splayed against her shoulder. His whiffling snores, right in her ear, sounded just like a cat's purr.

Holding herself very still, Aviva tried to work out what must have happened. Had Reno been sleepwalking? Or had he woken up disoriented by the lingering traces of Confuse in his bloodstream, seen a body in the other bed and, not remembering anything of how he'd got here, assumed… well, the obvious.

_Oh, god_ – this was what came of succumbing to devilish curiosity! His little animal had been quietly minding its own business, not bothering anybody, and then _she_'d had to go and wake it up. And (_oh, _she realised, _so that's why I was dreaming about the V.P.'s cat!) _so, as little animals are wont to do, it had followed her blindly home - and now what was she going to do? For the moment, judging by the feel of things - because she certainly wasn't going to risk taking another look - it was snoozing peacefully beside her, just like its owner. Hopefully, as long as she didn't make any rash movements, it would stay that way.

What time was it? Her PHS was in her jacket, out of reach. Wall Market's nightlife was going full throttle outside the window, so it was probably the middle of the night. Morning was hours away. She couldn't lie like this till then. She'd have to move. If she was careful, she might be able to disentangle herself from his limbs without waking him. He could have this bed. She'd take his. When morning came he wouldn't know he was in her bed because he wouldn't remember that Rude had put him in the other bed first. She could get into his bed and pretend it had been hers all along. That would be the best thing to do.

Very, very slowly she began to raise herself on one elbow, using the other elbow to nudge his arm loose, gently, gently –

"Nnngh," he complained, wrapping his arm more firmly around her, and pulling her tighter against his chest.

_Ok then_, she thought, _give it five minutes._

Any longer than that, and she might really fall asleep. He was so warm, and he smelt so good. With every moment that passed, her limbs felt less inclined to move. How long ago had he come into her bed? For all she knew, it could have been hours, and she'd been asleep all that time, missing out. Five minutes wasn't so much to ask. Five minutes to luxuriate in the sensation of being wrapped up in Reno like… like a small package tied with a big red ribbon. A gift - yes, that's what this was, a little surprise gift. She'd give herself five minutes to enjoy it. Then she would definitely move.

The whole situation felt so unreal, Aviva would have pinched herself to make sure she wasn't still dreaming – except, if this _was_ a dream, she didn't want to wake up. How could someone so skinny be so comfortable? The sensation of being pressed against his chest was a revelation: it didn't make her feel trapped at all, but protected_._ Treasured. Even though he was fast asleep, and _obviously_ wasn't doing it on purpose, she liked the way his arm had tightened round her like she was something he wanted to keep. _He_ was holding on to her, not she clinging to him the way it usually went.

If only it could be like this for real, for always.

Cradled in a bubble of perfect happiness, Aviva closed her eyes. It didn't matter that the bubble would inevitably burst. She was good at pretending. All she had to do was stay awake. If she fell asleep now, and he woke up first to find her slumbering in his arms… god, how excruciatingly embarrassing would _that_ be? He might even think that _she_ was the one who had crawled into _his _bed -

Unless…

(an audacious thought was forming in her mind)

… Unless he actually _wanted_ her there.

… !

Was that possible?

The human mind was such a complicated organ. On a conscious level, of course he didn't know what he was doing; Aviva understood that. But - but - what if she wasn't the only one whose subconscious was at work here tonight? He'd always thought of her as a kid, but…

She'd wasn't.

She'd stopped being a kid a long time ago, and maybe, somewhere in the deepest folds of his mind, where he put the things he didn't want to think about, he knew it.

Surely, surely, no love could burn so steadily and so brightly for as long as hers had done, without catching an answering spark in the soul of the beloved? When he was awake he was too busy thinking about other things, but when he was asleep, and his guard was down, the truth found its way to the surface.

_He_ was the one who'd come to _her_ bed.

Awake or asleep, a man's mind - and heart - were still his own. Dreams (Aviva was an expert on this) revealed to the dreamer his secret desires; the dreaming feet of a sleepwalker would only take him where he wanted to go.

_He could have any woman_, self-doubt whispered. _Why would he want you?_

Because, she thought defiantly, _I_ love him_._ And I understand him.

Over the years he'd tried all sorts of women, and none of them had lasted, none of them were what he wanted. Except -

But he'd said he didn't care about Cissnei any more - said it like he really meant it. He could easily have gone back to HQ and seen her, if that's what he wanted. Aviva had been expecting him to do just that. Probably everybody else had been expecting it, too. But he'd confounded them. And he hadn't told Aviva to fuck off when she got into the helicopter with him, either. If he'd wanted some other girl, he could have flown off by himself and found one. Instead, he'd taken Aviva with him. S_he_ was the one he'd wanted to be with on this strange and terrible and wonderful night. Just her. No one else. That was why he'd been annoyed when Rude joined them, and punished her with the hurtful quip about the lollipop – because she'd stupidly screwed everything up. He'd wanted to be _alone_ with her. God, why hadn't she seen it earlier?

They'd always been friends, hadn't they? He'd known all about her, but it hadn't mattered to him, because he'd been able to see past that. Right from the start he'd liked her and stuck up for her. And just as children grow, but stay children in their parents' eyes, what could be more natural than for that liking to grow into something bigger than friendship, without him realizing it?

He'd said she was 'fit' tonight. 'Fit' and 'not ugly', which, translated from Reno-speak, meant 'really quite attractive', or even 'pretty', because everybody knew that Reno didn't do compliments in the ordinary run of things.

And the way he was taking all that stuff from his pockets and lining it up on the table right in front of her – she'd _known_ he was trying to tell her something important, something he couldn't communicate in words. And he'd been so attentive to her all evening, trying to keep her mind off the events of the afternoon. He'd said he was proud of her when she won her game of pool. And he'd got that plush blue moogle from the claw machine for her –

Aviva startled. The moogle! Where had she left it?

"Mmnn," Reno muttered, shifting his weight and repositioning his limbs. "Don't go." His mouth, pressed against the skin of her neck, curved up in a smile. One hand lazily stroked her shoulder; the other had slipped down to burrow between her bare legs. She caught her breath. For a moment his hand simply lay there, burning. All thoughts of moogles and lollipops, of anything other than Reno, scattered and flew away; all she knew was the weight and shape and heat of his hand, its intrusion into her carefully-guarded privacy.

Languorous fingertips caressed her thigh. Her heart missed a beat. That beat seemed to last forever. The world stood still.

Something nobby-headed, velvet-skinned, nudged her buttock, once, twice, as if trying to get her attention. The little animal was rousing itself, stretching, stiffening. With a great thump, Aviva's heart began to race so violently it seemed to have leapt out of her chest and got stuck, throbbing, in her throat. Fear hardly had anything to do with it. Her heart always speeded up, and she always had trouble remembering to breathe, when he got too close – but the sensations rushing through her body now were things she had previously only dreamt of in mako-fuelled hallucinations.

"Reno – " she whispered.

She wished he'd relax his hold just a little, just enough to let her turn round. She wanted to see his face, and be sure that he was seeing hers.

He nuzzled the nape of her neck. "Mmn?"

"Reno, it's me."

"It was always you, babe."

The fingers that had been setting her thighs on fire slid up over her belly, and found their way inside her shirt. "You're dressed?" he said, sounding surprised .

"I – _oh_," she sighed as his hand closed round her breast.

"Such great tits," he murmured, kissing her ear.

Her skin was too tight, too hot. Her breasts ached. She felt like she was suffocating, exquisitely. There was no question of resistance. Her bones had softened; she couldn't keep her knees together. She was melting from the inside out. If only he'd put his hand down there again -

"I knew you'd come back," he breathed against her cheek. "I missed you so much, Cissnei."

* * *

_We all saw that coming, didn't we?_


	56. All I Ever Learned From Love

**CHAPTER 56: ALL I EVER LEARNED FROM LOVE  
**_**Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you**_

___for CameoAmalthea_

* * *

Hunter didn't try to hide her surprise when Tseng walked into the bunker. "Sir!" she exclaimed, her eyes growing wider as she took in his disguise,"I wasn't expecting to see you here."

_ Zack Fair's dead, the army's after our blood, the Department's falling to pieces, the Old Man's crazy, God knows what they did with Genesis, and Commander Veld's still out there somewhere - so why aren't you busy formulating a plan to get us all out of this mess, Boss? What the hell down here could be more important than that?_

Hunter might not have said it out loud, but it was what he heard her thinking.

She was staring at his hands. They had curled in on themselves, restless fingernails scoring scratch-marks onto the reddened palms. He hadn't realised he was doing it. Clenching his hands into fists, he said, "Where's the Vice-President?"

"I'm back here," called Rufus from the office. "I'll be right with you."

"You can go," Tseng told Hunter.

She collected her weapon and went. Tseng locked the door behind her. A moment later Rufus, dressed in black sweatpants and a long-sleeved white t-shirt, came around the partition carrying his cat in his arms. He stopped dead when he saw Tseng. For a moment it looked as if he was going to laugh, but the moment quickly passed.

"It's that bad, is it?" he said.

Tseng took off the hat and laid it on the arm of the green sofa; he pulled the eyeglasses from his face, and put them in his pocket.

Rufus swallowed. "I was reading the memoranda. I'm truly sorry about Fair, Tseng."

"Don't be. It was inevitable."

"You did everything you could."

"Well, it doesn't matter." Tseng was not about to be sidetracked. If he lost his momentum now, before he said what he had come to say, he might never find the will to do it. "Rufus, I need to talk to you."

The cat struggled in Rufus's arms. He was holding it much too tightly.

"Let it go," said Tseng.

Rufus winced. A drop of blood welled on his pale throat: the cat's claw had nicked his skin. He loosened his arms and let it jump to the floor. The cat ran away into the kitchen.

Tseng was still standing by the sofa, and Rufus remained rooted to the spot on the other side of the room, making no attempt to bridge the distance between them. He probably knew already what Tseng was about to say.

"Rufus, this has to stop."

Not a single muscle moved in Rufus' face, and his look of blankness intensified, but at least he didn't try to pretend that he didn't know what Tseng was talking about. "Straight to the point, I see," he said.

"It's not – " Tseng stopped. On the way here he had planned his speech out word for word, but now, with those blue Shinra eyes searching his face, trying to read him, he realised that all his carefully chosen phrases amounted to nothing but an insult to Rufus's intelligence. _It's not that I wanted it to end this way. It's for you own good. One day you'll thank me…_

"I want you to understand," he tried again.

"I do understand."

"Do you?"

"I think so. This has something to do with Zack Fair."

"Indirectly," said Tseng. "Yes."

"Yes," Rufus echoed – and now, unless Tseng was imagining things, his voice had recovered a little tone, a little muscle; that finely-tuned mind was shifting back into gear after momentarily stalling. "I can't in all honesty say I didn't see this coming. Something's felt wrong for a while now. Well, many things have gone wrong, haven't they? You've been distancing yourself from me ever since the Legend died. I didn't think it would happen quite so fast… But when you finally make up your mind to do something, you don't waste time, do you?"

"It was wrong of me to let it go on as long as it did."

"Look, Tseng, won't you – " Rufus's voice broke; he frowned, took a deep breath, recomposed himself, and continued, "Won't you sit down, at least? I know this must be uncomfortable for you, but do you really need to stand there as if you're about to run out the door? We can still talk to each other, can't we, like civilized people?"

Rufus himself sat down as he said this, choosing, by accident or design, the same sofa where, the last time they were together, they'd made love like two men drowning, dragging each other under. The noises Rufus had made then had been anything but civilized. Tseng's knees weakened at the memory.

Never again.

For a fraction of second, he felt his resolve in danger. Quickly he sat, perching his weight uneasily on the arm of the green sofa in the way people do when they don't intend to stay long.

"Will you tell me what happened today?" said Rufus.

"You read the memoranda."

"Yes, I did. But now that it's personally significant to me, I think I'd like to hear it from you, if you don't mind."

There was such a painful dignity in his manner that Tseng could not refuse him, though he had every intention of keeping his report brief. He began with the phone call from Cissnei, and the six Turks who were immediately dispatched, by Presidential command, on aerial reconnaissance, two of them with orders to track the movements of the Garuda company, mustered from their barracks in Midgar, who were known to have a grudge against the target. He explained how he had been shuttling back and forth between the control room and the board room, and how Rosalind, working furiously, had managed to unscramble Heidegger's private radio frequency - thus playing right into the hands of the enemy, who had used the radio to feed the Turks false information which kept them searching in the wrong quadrant, while a company of Alexanders, brought up from Kalm, attacked and took down the target.

At some point while he was delivering this account Tseng's discourse shifted unconsciously into report mode, objective, impersonal, using a pared-down vocabulary from which all emotive words had been stripped. This way of talking came so naturally to him that it took a while before he registered the change - and then realised, to his surprise, that his hands had relaxed.

Oh, clever Rufus.

Tseng fell silent. He had come to the end of his report, anyway.

"Can I ask you something?" said Rufus. "What would you have done if you'd found him first? Did you ever come a decision about that?"

"Does it matter now?"

"Well, yes, it does. To me it does. I'm curious to know whether you ever found an answer to your conundrum. Or were you planning to make up your mind on the spur of the moment?"

"I knew he was beyond saving. I would have had to kill him."

Rufus laughed; a strangled noise. "And you think he would have let you? Zack Fair was a First Class _before_ they put him into Hojo's tanks; today, he practically annihilated an entire battalion single-handed. You've had a lucky escape, Tseng. You just don't realize it yet." Rufus stood up. "I'm going to make coffee. You look like you could do with some."

He went into the kitchen, out of Tseng's line of sight. Tseng heard water running, the click of the percolator being switched on, the sound of china clinking and the peculiar pneumatic sigh of a fridge door as it opened and closed. It seemed to him there was something quintessentially Turk-like about this turning to the coffee pot in moments of crisis, keeping one's hands busy with soothing, familiar motions, while buying oneself time to think. Rufus was certainly taking it surprisingly well. He'd said himself he'd seen it coming. Maybe this wasn't going to be as difficult as Tseng had imagined.

And yet…

Deep in his chest a dull ache had lodged, right under the breastbone. Heartache, of course. Odd that it should hurt there, when love was a thing of the mind, a product of the senses, eyes and ears, tongue, hands, skin. Referred pain, he supposed. It felt surprisingly real.

He'd spent so long dreading and preparing for this moment that probably anything Rufus had said or done in response would have felt anti-climactic. All the same, he found himself wishing, perversely, that Rufus would show a little less maturity and a little more emotion; put up some kind of a fight.

"Here you are," said Rufus, setting the cup of black coffee down on the table, close to Tseng's hand, before retreating to the other sofa. Tseng reached for the cup and took a sip. He didn't really want it, but the ritual significance of the offering demanded respect.

While the coffee was brewing, he had decided what he wanted to say. "Do you remember," he began, "Warning me about self-indulgence?"

Rufus gave a thin smile. "Did I do that? I must not have been thinking straight."

"No, you were right. Zack was… He had the sort of character that can't help making an big impression. He was an easy man to like, even thought he often wasn't easy to manage. He had a kind of – naïve arrogance, the type who'd rush in where angels fear to tread. He made plenty of work for me, I can tell you. But I never saw him do anything mean or dishonest. His instincts were all good. I don't think he knew the meaning of fear. And he was loyal to Shinra, until we turned him against us. But even then, even after he escaped from Hojo, he never, to my knowledge, showed any interest in taking revenge. All he wanted was his freedom."

Tseng paused. "Zack was… He considered himself to be my friend. And there were other obligations. What I'm trying to say, Rufus, is that there are many lessons to be learnt from the mistakes we made with Zack, but the one concerning us right now is this. If I could not afford to be self-indulgent when it came to my personal feelings for Zack, how much less can I afford to let my feelings for you govern my actions? Or yours for me? Yours least of all. Shinra has plenty of soldiers. Your father has only one son. I have to think about what's best for the company and for you."

While Tseng was speaking, the cat, possibly sensing a calming of the atmosphere, had come back into the room and begun to twine itself around Rufus's ankles. Rufus ignored it. Picking at imaginary piece of lint on his trouser leg, he said, "You mean you're doing this for my sake?"

"I'm saying that men in our position aren't always free to do what we want. We do what we must. It's not necessarily what we'd choose."

Both men fell silent. The reactors throbbed in the distance; Tseng felt their vibrations through the soles of his shoes, echoing the beat of the pulse in his throat. He remembered the time he and Rufus had lain with their hearts carefully pressed together; it had been Rufus's idea of an experiment. _Breathe with me_, he'd said_. Concentrate. Synchronise. _They'd failed, of course. Too much laughing.

Tseng looked across at Rufus. He was leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees, chin in hand, blue eyes not quite focused on anything. That long stray lock of hair hung over his brow. He might have been solving a difficult chess problem. Tseng wondered if Rufus was also remembering, and if so, what images, what regrets, were playing through his mind's eye? _What are you thinking, Rufus? _Yesterday, he would have been able to ask.

Not today. Never again.

"Has Reno said something?" Rufus asked.

Mention of Reno reminded Tseng of the gun in the dragon leather holster, now restored to its rightful place under his left armpit. Tys had given it to Knox, who'd given it to Rosalind, who had brought it to Tseng herself. It troubled him to think of all the hands the gun had passed through on its way back to him, but as far as he knew nobody had commented, or questioned why he'd left it in the bunker.

"No," he said.

"Then why now?" asked Rufus.

"Because our luck is bound to run out soon."

"Quit while we're ahead, you mean?"

Tseng's restless hands were twining their fingers together. He forced them to be still, and said, "You could put it like that. But to be honest with you, that's not the only reason. You've become a distraction to me. I don't mean that the way it sounds. I'm not doing my job properly. I think about you when I should be doing other things. "

Rufus smiled, beautifully. "I thought your job _was_ to think about me."

"My job is to get you out of this place and back at your father's side as soon as possible and with the minimum of scandal. Anything that might prevent that is not in your best interests."

"And you know what my best interest is, of course."

There, at last, it was: the anger Tseng had longed to hear, curdling Rufus's voice with sarcasm. It seemed he was planning to put up a fight after all.

A part of Tseng's mind knew it would be wiser to leave now. He'd said what he had come to say. There could be no possibility of reprieve. And it was never a good idea to argue with Rufus. The part of Tseng's mind that knew this was the same part that had warned him on that first night to stifle desire and walk away from an offer of love; he hadn't listened to it then, and he didn't listen to it now.

He didn't _want_ to go, not yet – or rather, he felt he must stay for as long as it took to make Rufus accept the situation. Rufus needed to see - to admit – to agree that no other course of action was open to them. The happiest outcome would be if they could part by mutual consent. Above all, though, and whatever else happened, Tseng wanted the ending to be dignified. If, as seemed increasingly likely, he was fated to die – If by this time next year nothing was left of him but memories, he wanted those memories to be good ones. If, on the other hand, he was fated to live, then he wanted to leave open the possibility that the two of them might one day become friends… Or if that was too much to hope for, at least let them respect one another enough to be able to work together.

"Has my father given any indication that he wants me back?" Rufus asked.

"He doesn't know what he wants. He's become so isolated. His friends are old men like himself, or they're sycophants. He's surrounded by yes-men. Scarlet plays on his weaknesses. Reeve isn't forceful enough to make his voice heard, not that he has much to say worth hearing. Shinra needs somebody who can stand up to your father and isn't afraid to call him out on his bad decisions. He needs _you_, Rufus. He wouldn't be too proud to listen to you. You're his own flesh and blood."

"You keep saying he needs me, yet here I still am."

"We're working on that."

Rufus gave him a sidelong look, as if considering a question. Evidently he thought better of it, for he said nothing, but returned to his thoughtful pose. The purr of the cat and the thrumming of the reactor merged into one another and became a single sound.

At last Rufus raised his head and said, "You just don't see it, do you?"

"What?"

"This little game my father is playing with you. You don't understand his thought processes. In his mind, you see, you're Veld's proxy. Veld deserted him: Veld deserves to suffer. Since he can't get his hands on Veld, he vents his spite on you instead. First he orders you to hunt down and kill the man who raised you, then he sits back for a while to watch you tie yourself in knots over it - and then he sends Scarlet and Heidegger to harass you, to make sure you can never relax. And _then_, just to turn the screw a little tighter, he pretends to sympathise with you. And all the time he's got the wool pulled down so far over your eyes that you end up taking his side against me."

Tseng's first thought was that Rufus was assigning him too much importance. Veld had been the Old Man's friend, but Tseng – Tseng was just a Turk, and Turks were tools. If your tools weren't fit for the task, you discarded them, but you didn't play mind-games with their feelings. Tools had no feelings…. Or if they did, their feelings were of no account.

When the department failed to complete a mission, punishment followed: that was the natural order of things. That he himself would be held chiefly responsible for any such failure went without saying. He had always understood, and even respected, the Old Man's constant need to test their loyalty. Their employer could be unpredictable, yes; demanding, often, and egoistic, always. He was the master of the art of damning with faint praise. But he was also the man who had built a small weapons company into the de facto government of the world, a man who knew how to manage other men and make the most of their talents. Rufus now seemed to be suggesting that this same man deliberately kept his Chief Turk in office for no other reason than to torment him - which sounded a little far-fetched, even by Shinra's standards. Tseng wondered if Rufus believed it himself.

"What you keep forgetting," he replied. "Is that you and your father are on the same side. He could be your greatest ally, if you weren't so determined to hate him."

"You see? You see?" Rufus laughed. "He's really got you believing that he cares about me. You probably think that in his heart of hearts he misses his old friend Veld too. And even though you know he doesn't deserve it, you feel a little sorry for him sometimes, don't you? The poor, lonely old man."

"He _is_ lonely," said Tseng, thinking of his conversation with Cissnei. "And I think his loneliness is what makes him cruel."

"Oh, he's subtle, I'll give you that," said Rufus. "If he simply threw a brick at you, you could throw it back. But with him, it's the things he _doesn't _say that do the damage. He used to play exactly the same game with me, you know. Only with me, it was about my mother."

In all the many years they'd known each other, Tseng could not remember Rufus mentioning his mother more than a handful of times. And now he'd brought her into the conversation twice in less than a week.

"When I was little," said Rufus, "He had me convinced that I was responsible for her death."

Since Rufus's mother had died giving birth to him, this was, in a technical sense, true. But it was still a terrible thing to say to a child. If he had said it.

"In nearly every one of my memories, he's towering over me," said Rufus. "He'd stand there, looking down at me, and he'd say how much I reminded him of her. And then he'd sigh, like this – " Rufus made a soulful, aching noise – "And he'd say 'if only you could have known her. What a shame. Still not your fault, eh, my lad? You didn't ask to be born, did you?' The more he said it wasn't my fault, Tseng, the more I understood that _everything_ was my fault. It was my fault I had no mother; my fault that my father had been left to raise me all alone in a big empty house. I was terrified that he might die too. If anything happened to him, it would be my fault. And then later, when Lazard suddenly materialised out of the woodwork, I knew that he was my fault too. If I'd been good enough, my father wouldn't have needed another son."

"But you don't still think that," said Tseng.

"I was his willing scapegoat for a long time before I finally figured it out. Don't you remember I told you, years ago, that he always keeps someone on hand to take the blame? And it's so much more stylish, so much more satisfying, so _piquant,_ if he can persuade them to blame themselves. Reeve blames himself; that's why this company will eat him alive. The others don't. Scarlet, Palmer, Heidegger, Hojo – they have no guilt and no remorse, and so they've survived. And then, there's _you_."

"You're wrong if you think I never feel remorse," said Tseng.

Rufus stared at him, astonished. Then he exclaimed, with a laugh, "You? You're the world's leading exponent of misplaced guilt. You're blaming yourself for Fair's death right this very minute. Even though there was nothing you could have done to prevent it, you've persuaded yourself that he died because you failed to do your job properly. I know you blame yourself for the Legend's death. I think you even blame yourself for what happened at Corel. Don't you? You think that if only you'd been more vigilant, more professional, you could have nipped my involvement with Avalanche in the bud. Am I right?"

"I blame Veld for Corel," Tseng replied.

"Veld? Really? Not me?"

"He could have prevented it. He knew the extent of your dealings with Avalanche, and he allowed it to continue."

"But you beat me – "

Suddenly, Rufus's composure cracked, and he was forced to break off as an involuntary intake of breath shook his body. His chest convulsed like that of a drowned man gasping for air. A look of panic came into his eyes; it seemed, for a moment, as if he was about to lose his struggle against the feelings he was trying to contain. One word from Tseng would have been enough to tip him over. But the last thing Tseng wanted was for Rufus to humiliate himself. The naked pleading in those blue eyes was more than he could bear; therefore he did not speak, but looked down at his shoes, and waited, and in another moment the danger had passed, and Rufus was in control of himself once more.

"Punishment is only redemptive," he went on, "When one has earned it. That day, in the reactor – do you remember? When you looked at me, and then you said, 'Rufus, is this true?' That day was the first time in my life that I felt you really _saw_ me. Until then you'd had me typecast as a whiny spoiled rich kid with too much time on his hands and not enough to keep him busy. But that day, you learnt that I knew how to turn words into actions. You saw what I was capable of. You had to start taking me seriously. That alone was worth the beating you gave me. Rude offered, you know, to heal me, afterwards, but I wouldn't let him. I was proud of my scars. I was proud of them _because_ I'd deserved them. They proved to me – and to you, too, I think – that I could take my well-earned punishment like a man."

Rufus paused, took another shaky breath, and added. "But now you're trying to punish us both for something that is not my fault."

"I'm not trying to – "

"I didn't kill Zack Fair," Rufus cut in. "My father did. He gave the order. He runs this company. Why won't you ever lay the blame where it belongs, Tseng? Why don't you punish _him_?"

"I'm not doing this to punish you, Rufus."

His words had no effect. Rufus's expression didn't change, though his tone grew more insistent: "Don't you know how much he resents your devotion to Commander Veld? Can't you see what a reproach it is to him? He thinks of me, and he thinks of Lazard, and he wonders where he went wrong, but rather than face up to the ugly truth that he's a complete failure as a father he thinks it would make him feel better about himself if he could force you to do to Veld what I tried to do to – "

"I know where you're going with this," Tseng cut him off. "And my answer is still no."

"But why _not_?" Rufus exclaimed. "He's not fit to run this company any more. How can you fail to see that? You _do_ see it; I know you do. The fate of the entire world is in the hands of one selfish, wasteful, crazy old man, a man so pig-headed he'd rather see a whole town go up in smoke than back down from a order he issued out of spite – And you know what he's like, yet you refuse to do anything about it."

"That's right," said Tseng. "Now drop it."

"Do you know what your problem is?" Rufus demanded. "Aside from your guilt complex, and your conviction that you always know best? You're still trying to play this game by the rules Veld taught you – but Veld's gone, Tseng, he went away and left you in charge, and the stakes are higher now, thanks to him. The axe could fall at any moment. Your entire department could be wiped out tomorrow. Do you think that's what he would have wanted? All his boys and girls, his life's work, annihilated because _you_ shrink from doing what any sane person can see needs to be done? Do you really think that's going to make him proud of you?"

Tseng's fists curled, nails biting into his palms. "I said that's _enough_."

"I've watched you over the last few months becoming more and more hesitant, more and more indecisive, less and less willing to take any step that you can't back down from. You're so wary of putting a foot wrong that you'd rather do nothing and play the waiting game, hoping our enemies will make the first mistake – "

"We can't_ afford_ for me to make any more mistakes," Tseng snapped.

"What we can't afford is to do nothing!" Rufus slammed his fist against his knee. "That would be the real mistake. _Now_ is the time to strike back at them, when they think they've got us on the run. Their over-confidence is our opportunity. You're still allowed to carry weapons into his office, aren't you? That's how little my father thinks of you. He doesn't think you've got it in you to turn on him. He doesn't see you as a man, Tseng. To him you're just a creature; you're just another thing he made, just like Sephiroth was – Tseng, don't go!"

For Tseng had sprung to his feet. Instinctively he turned for the door, but was arrested by a powerful sensation, a knotting in his chest, like the tug of an invisible rope anchoring him to the spot. Rufus also leapt up, and made a movement as if to come over to him. Tseng threw out a hand to ward him off. "No more. I don't want to hear it."

"You can't just walk in here, without any discussion, and announce that it's over. You can't do that. I won't let you."

"It _is_ over – "

"Because you made that decision."

"Someone had to."

"A decision in which I was allowed no voice."

"It was necessary – "

"A decision which will somehow atone for all the ones you should have made, but didn't."

Tseng bent his head, pressing his fists to his temples. Rufus, with his usual deadly accuracy, had struck straight to the heart of the matter, articulating in a few well-sharpened words something that Tseng had never been willing to acknowledge. He was trying to bargain with fate. The vein of superstition that ran deep in him could not shake off the notion that if only he would willingly sacrifice the thing he cherished most, all the other things he feared would not come to pass. Of course, that was nonsense.

"You know," said Rufus, "Maybe you are right to blame yourself. If you'd killed my father when I asked you to, Zack Fair would still be alive."

Tseng covered his eyes with his hand. "Please. Don't do this to me."

He'd come here tonight certain that he was doing the right thing, the rational thing. Now, suddenly, he wasn't so sure.

Rufus took a few steps closer. "I _have_ to make you listen to me," he said, hands opened wide in entreaty. "All I have to fight with are these words. You're about to make a terrible mistake. If I can't get you to see that, I'm going to lose you. He will end up killing you unless you kill him first. Probably he'll kill all of you. No one would blame you if you struck the first blow. He's taken so much from you already, Tseng. Are you going to let him take this, too? When you could stop him so easily?"

_He's right_, thought Tseng. _I could._

"And then this nightmare would be over, and Veld could come home."

_One quick headshot. Reno waiting with the chopper outside –_

It made perfect sense. Why couldn't he say yes? What was standing in his way? Veld's conditioning? Some irrational mental tic?

"And Aerith would be safe," Rufus added.

His hand closed around Tseng's wrist as he said this. To Tseng's tightly-wound nerves, the touch was magnetizing: he couldn't pull away. Rufus drew him closer. "If you won't do it for me," he said, leaning in, "Do it for her."

His lips brushed Tseng's mouth lightly, almost experimentally. When Tseng did not resist, the kiss grew hungrier, slow and deep, the way he knew Tseng liked it. Rufus let his hands and tongue do the arguing now. _Isn't this worth risking everything for?_

Eventually, they had to break apart to breathe.

"No," said Tseng. But his voice was unsteady.

"You don't mean that." Rufus spoke with absolute confidence.

"Let me go. I need to think."

Rufus licked his tongue along the line of Tseng's jaw. "Don't think."

"I am not – so weak – " Mustering his strength, he shoved Rufus away. Rufus, caught off guard, stumbled and fell against the sofa. Once again Tseng instinctively turned towards the door.

"No," Rufus cried.

"I'm not leaving. I need to think. Leave me alone."

He went to the bathroom. No other room, aside from Rufus's bedroom, had a lock on the door. He slid the metal bolt across, then turned around and leaned his shoulders heavily against the door, taking deep breaths. His legs were trembling as if he'd run a marathon. They couldn't hold his weight. He sank to the floor and curled in on himself, pressing his knuckles against his brow.

"Tseng." Rufus's voice came like a draught under the door.

"Leave me alone."

The door-handle rattled. "Unlock this."

"I need to think."

"You're being ridiculous. Locking yourself in the bathroom is not going to solve anything."

Tseng had to get away from the insidious logic of that voice. Clumsily he struggled to his feet.

"Tseng!"

He crossed over to the sink –

Rufus banged on the door. "Tseng, listen to me."

- and opened both taps. Water gushed out, drowning Rufus's words. Tseng saw that his hands were shaking. He bent over the sink and held both wrists under the cold tap, soaking the cuffs of his tweed jacket.

Rufus was still battering the door. "Turn those taps off!"

Tseng threw cold water on his face and ran his hands through his hair, slicking back the loose strands.

"Tseng ! Please!"

"Go sit down. I'll be out in a minute."

To his surprise, the pounding on the door ceased. A kind of silence fell. He heard only the running of the water, the throb of the reactors, the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears. He breathed deeply, and splashed more water onto his face. The water trickled down his neck, under his collar.

Lifting his head, he took a long look at himself in the mirror.

A single drop of water hung trembling from his eyelashes. The bright shaving light above the mirror threw into high relief the crow's feet Rufus had liked to smooth with his little finger. The dot in the middle of his forehead was still as black as ever, still mysterious, too geometrically precise in its positioning to be passed off as a mole. His ears were still too big. His skin was still sallow; a shade of paleness different from those whose pallor was not due entirely to Midgar's lack of sunlight. Tseng's skin had been made for long hours working in rice fields under a hot sky. He never burned. Rufus, who was white like milk faintly pinked by a drop of blood, and easily sunburned, had once paused in the middle of running his tongue up Tseng's spine to observe that his skin tasted like saffron truffles but had the lustre of gold. Well, Rufus was fond of extravagant compliments; he made gifts of them, the way his father gave away Gongagan cigars and luxury watches, out of his immense wealth of words.

Tseng had thought he'd made his peace with this face. Learnt to love it, even. But now, looking into the mirror, what he saw looking back at him was all the argument he needed to finish the job he had come here to do. Rufus didn't understand because he couldn't see it, and therefore…. Tseng would have to make him see it.

As he opened the bathroom door, the thought came to him that perhaps the reason everything was so quiet was because Rufus had left the bunker – but when he returned to the sitting area, Rufus was sitting on the sofa with the cat curled up beside him, purring. He appeared to be in the depths of despair, his head buried in his hands; however, when Tseng walked in, he looked up, and Tseng saw that he had merely been absorbed in re-grouping his forces, preparing for the next attack. Without waiting for Tseng to speak, he said, "You won't do it, will you? You'd rather gives this up. Give _me_ up."

The stitch under Tseng's breastbone gave a sharp twist of pain. He sat down on the opposite sofa, beyond Rufus's reach.

"I don't understand you," said Rufus. "I don't understand how you can think this is the better choice."

"You must have known from the start that it couldn't last. I refuse to accept that you didn't. You're far too intelligent for that."

"It could have done. It still could."

"How?"

"If you want it to."

Tseng momentarily shut his eyes, then opened them again and said sternly, "Rufus, look at me."

"I _am_ looking at you." And in fact he had been looking at Tseng, but even as he said this, his focus slid away to the wall behind Tseng's shoulder – as if, by refusing to look at them, he could make the facts disappear.

Tseng began, "There are so many reasons why we should have been off-limits to each other. Our respective positions in life, our ages, the years we've known each other –"

"None of that seemed to matter to you at the beginning."

"That was my mistake. They mattered then, and they matter now. You've been shut up so long I think you may have forgotten what it's like out there in the real world. A relationship like this cannot be hidden for long. Nothing you do will be private. You will never be out of the public eye. Every move you make will be subject to the most intense scrutiny – "

"But we're not in the real world. We're here."

Tseng leaned forward. "This _is_ my real world. Every day I have to make decisions on which the lives of many people may depend. They trust me to do this because they trust me to put their welfare ahead of my own. And every day I have to make these decisions knowing, in the back of my mind, that I'm lying to them about something they would consider profoundly important. Are you surprised I find it hard to be decisive? My Turks are not stupid, Rufus. Reno may be the only one who's said anything, but I'm sure he's not the only one who senses it. There can only be one reason why he hasn't put two and two together yet, and that is because he trusts my judgment. Do you know how that makes me feel? I'll tell you: it makes me feel like shit. And you flaunting it in their faces doesn't help."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Taeng drew his gun from under his jacket and laid it on the table.

"Ah," said Rufus.

"Why did you leave it where they could find it?"

"I didn't think – "

"Yes you did. You do these things deliberately, Rufus. You take unnecessary risks."

"Is _that _what this is about?" Rufus laughed, but it was mostly nerves. "Don't you think you're over-reacting just a little bit? Nobody can prove anything."

"They don't need proof. The rumours alone would be enough to destroy you. If the press got wind of it they'd have a field day – "

"Your Turks would never let that happen."

"Haven't you been listening to a word I said? If I lose the trust of my team then I lose control of my department. Look at me, Rufus. No, _look_ at me. Look at what I am. Wutaian, Turk, it's hard to say which is worse. If our relationship became public knowledge… If word gets out that you have a Wutaian Turk as your homosexual lover, nobody will ever look at you with respect again. They may pay lip service to your position, but behind your back, they'll be sniggering at you. They'll say it's impossible to get anywhere in the Shinra corporation unless you're a foreigner or a faggot. And you'll lose any chance you have of winning the army's loyalty. You're sleeping with the enemy. They'll take that as a personal insult. They'll say that I'm controlling you. They'll assume that all your orders come from me. 'We fucked Wutai,' they'll say, 'and now Wutai's fucking Shinra', and it will seem to them that their comrades died for nothing."

Rufus had turned very pale. His throat worked, but no sound came out.

"Becoming a public laughing stock is an ugly fate," said Tseng gently. "I don't want it to happen to you."

"You're no more Wutaian than I am," Rufus objected. "Except on the outside."

"Appearance is everything."

"You make it sound as if I should be ashamed of you."

_That time may come_, thought Tseng, and the knot in his heart gave another painful twist. But he pressed on. "Rufus, if I did what you ask, and your father was dead tomorrow, what exactly do you think would happen? Do you think you would just walk into his shoes unchallenged? You've been away for a long time. You're an unknown quantity. To most people, you're nothing more than an occasional headline in a newspaper. Some people believe you're dead. Can you prove otherwise? Can you actually prove that you are who you say you are? And that's only the first hurdle. You're very young. You have no experience. Your connections to Avalanche make you vulnerable to exposure and blackmail. Powerful, entrenched forces are ranged against you. You can't run this company without the support of the army, and while the army isn't against you, yet, it's not behind you yet, either. Heidegger will back whoever he thinks can best protect his own interests. Your only certain allies are eleven members of a discredited department, and possibly Reeve Tuesti. If your father were to die tomorrow, I can guarantee Scarlet would take this company from you without lifting a finger. Burying you in the same grave with me would be a bonus for her. You _need_ your father, Rufus. Alive. Now, and for the foreseeable future.

"But I need you more." The look of bewildered distress had deepened on the young man's face.

"You don't need me. Not really. You only think you do."

"I do need you. I can't do it without you."

It was on the tip of Tseng's tongue to say, _I will always be here for you_ – but holding out false hope was something that torturers did. With carefully-measured cruelty, he replied, "Then you need me too much. A man in your position shouldn't allow himself to become over-dependent on anyone."

Rufus flushed angrily, right to the roots of his hair. "Fuck you. I _love_ you."

Like an uppercut to the ribs, the pain in Tseng's chest flared with an intensity that knocked the breath from his lungs. He pressed a hand to his ribs, scarcely able to believe that he had not been shot, that Rufus had not picked up the gun and shot him. But there was no blood.

"You can't do this to me," said Rufus.

His breastbone felt like it was splitting asunder. He'd taken knives to the chest that had hurt less. Was he cracking up? No wound that didn't actually shed blood had any business hurting so badly. This pain was all in the mind. He could over-ride it.

"What the hell do you think gives you the right to tell me when it's over?" Rufus cried.

"Nothing - lasts forever."

"That's bullshit."

Tseng couldn't answer. It was as if he had swallowed a live coal. Pain choked him. From the centre of his chest its agony radiated outwards in all directions, firing needles into his throat and twisting his intestines. The feeling was so real that he couldn't prevent his fist instinctively bearing down on the place where no bullet hole was, to stem the flow of blood that wasn't bleeding.

Finally he managed to say, "Rufus, please. You'll only make it worse if you keep trying to fight me."

"But I can't help it. I love you. If you loved me you'd know what it feels like, and then you wouldn't be doing this to me."

Tseng couldn't sit still; his body felt compelled to move, driven like an animal by the restless need to get away from whatever was hurting it – a futile instinct, since he was carrying the source inside him. Hardly knowing what he was doing, he stood up. Rufus, impelled by the same instinct, at once jumped to his feet. "You can't leave now," he cried.

"You're making this harder than it needs to be."

"Am I? How hard does it need to be? You're the expert; you tell me."

"I know it sounds impossible right now, but believe me – you will get over this."

"I don't want to get over it."

"It will happen whether you want it to or not."

"Tell me that you don't love me," Rufus challenged.

The knife twisted in Tseng's heart. He snarled. "What?"

"Tell me that you don't love me. If you say it, I'll believe you. I trust you not to lie to me. But I need to hear you say it. Just tell me that you don't love me. Then I'll let you go."

_Complete the mission, by whatever means necessary. _The means had presented itself. There was only one possible answer.

"I don't love you," he said.

"You're lying," said Rufus.

"You're just a boy -"

"You're such a bad liar."

"And this was an adolescent crush that got out of hand."

"I _love _you – "

"Stop saying that. It doesn't make any difference what you feel, or what name you give it. It's time to let it go. Plenty of young men your age go through a phase of being attracted to an older man, especially if he – if he represents qualities they think they admire. But they grow out of it. You can't stay stuck in this – " Tseng gestured angrily around the room, at the shabby furniture, the flimsy grey walls – "this stage of your life. You have to move on. It's what we all do. You'll find other lovers, people more - appropriate to your station in life. One day you'll have to marry and have children – "

"Oh, for God's sake!" Rufus cried.

"Those things are your future. Not me. You can't turn your back on your obligations. Your father needs you. You have a company waiting for you. You have a vision, Rufus."

"Don't start pretending now you ever took my ideas seriously. I know perfectly well you were indulging me in order to keep me occupied. That was your job, wasn't it? To keep me happy, and to keep me quiet."

"My job," said Tseng, struggling to control his temper, to overcome the pain, "Has always been to protect you."

"Then maybe you should have protected me from yourself."

"I don't deny it. I made an error of judgement, and I take full responsibility."

Rufus's eyes narrowed. He drew himself up to his full height, and lifted his chin in the air. "Oh, you do, do you? How very professional of you. What am I supposed to say? 'Thank you'? Ever since we got together you've done nothing but patronize me. And fuck me. So, yes, thank you for that, thanks for being so fucking condescending. And thanks for all the patronizing fucking. Did you think you were doing me a favour?"

Tseng opened his mouth to speak, but Rufus cut him off with a furious swipe of the hand. "You've had your say. It's my turn now. I'm sick of listening to you accuse me of being childish. I do not act like a child. It's you who treats me like one. Lecturing me, indulging my whims, and all the time belittling my feelings – "

"You cannot allow yourself to be ruled by your feelings."

"Stop telling me what I can and cannot do! Who appointed you my mentor? Who the hell do you think you are? You were supposed to be my lover, but I don't know anymore – were you ever even that? Maybe all you've ever been is my father's employee."

There was a long pause as Tseng calculated his answer.

"But you knew that," he said coldly.

It was the killing blow. The look on Rufus's face – Tseng had seen it once before, on Reno, in that dawn when they'd learnt from each other the full extent of Cissnei's betrayal. Reno had stood below him, at the bottom of the mezzanine steps, looking up at him with those same dazed eyes. Tseng had honestly thought he was drunk. They'd gone beyond what words could mend, by that point. Reno had curled back his fist to punch him in the face –

He should not have left his gun on the table.

Tseng made a dive for it, but Rufus had the advantage of a second's head start. Grabbing it with one hand, he covered Tseng's face with his other hand and pushed him backwards with all his considerable strength. Tseng twisted, fighting to keep his balance. The arm of the sofa caught him in the back of the knee; he tripped and fell, the sharp corner of the table scraping his forehead as he went down. He felt the skin split. Hot blood trickled stinging into his eye. Out of his other eye he saw Rufus vault one-handed over the back of the sofa and make for the door, and the thought flashed through his mind _so it's not me he wants to kill_ –

Tseng scrambled to his feet. Rufus was trying to unlock the door, fumbling awkwardly with his left hand while his right hand cradled the gun against his chest. Tseng wiped the blood from his eyes. Grabbing Rufus by the shoulders, he threw him away from the door. Rufus hit the floor with a thud, winded but still gripping the gun tightly. Tseng went after him, intending to wrench it out of his fingers.

Anger, and the blood blinding his eye, made him careless. Rufus shot out a hand, grabbed Tseng by the ankle and pulled his leg out from under him. As Tseng went down, Rufus rolled to his feet and once again ran for the door. Shifting the gun to his other hand, he managed to get the door unlocked and half-open before Tseng caught him, dragged him back into the room and shoved him face-first against the nearest wall. Rufus resisted furiously. Tseng had to pin him to the spot, planting a fist between his shoulder blades, both feet braced for leverage against the floor. With his free hand he began to force Rufus's gun arm up behind his back, pushing it as far as it would go, while all the time Rufus bucked and kicked and fought to break free.

There was a fierce physical pleasure for Tseng in this struggle, the rush of adrenaline burning in his veins, his muscles straining to triumph over his adversary. For a moment or two, as he twisted Rufus's arm towards its snapping point, he felt something close to joy. He had forgotten what they were fighting for. He had almost forgotten who was Rufus was. Winning was all that mattered. He would get that gun if it killed him; he'd peel those fingers off it one by one. Break them, if he had to –

Rufus's shoulder made a cracking sound. His cry of pain brought Tseng back to himself: he realised what he was doing, and eased up the pressure just a little – just enough for Rufus to worm his other arm free, reaching behind his shoulder to grab whatever he could get hold of. His fingers tangled in Tseng's hair and pulled so hard it felt to Tseng as if his scalp was being ripped from his skull. Stars rocketed through his field of vision. The vicious pain made his eyes water. His grip on Rufus's wrist slackened.

That was all it took. Rufus burst free, staggered out of Tseng's reach, and turned around to face him. Holding the gun two-handed as the Turks had taught him, he took aim at the dot on Tseng's forehead.

Both men were gasping for breath. Tseng held himself very still. "Give me my gun," he said.

Rufus cocked the hammer. "Get out of my way."

"No. Give me my gun."

"If you won't kill him, I will."

Tseng could feel the perspiration crawling in his hairline. His face was sticky with blood. Sweat dripped from Rufus's chin.

"Give me my gun, Rufus."

"Get out of my way, or I'll shoot you."

"Give me my gun."

"I'll shoot you, and then I'll shoot him."

"Then shoot me. I'm not moving."

Rufus's body hunched to the right, favouring his injured shoulder. Bloody fingerprints covered his T-shirt. His arms, stretched out in front of him, had begun to tremble. His teeth clenched with the effort of holding his aim steady. The gun's muzzle described ever-widening circles in the air.

"Fuck!" he shouted, and threw the gun across the room.

It hit the floor and went off with a bang that shook the walls and ripped through Tseng's eardrums. He used his sleeve to wipe the bloody sweat from his eyes. Rufus was still in one piece, seemingly too shocked to move. The gunshot had gone through the partition wall, blasting a hole in it the size of Tseng's fist. Through the hole he could see smoke, sparks, and a disfigured tangle of metal and plastic. One of the computer monitors had taken the bullet straight through its screen.

"You stupid boy!" he shouted over the ringing in his ears. "That could have been your head!"

For a long moment Rufus simply stared at him, and as he stared the horror that had flattened his expression changed to a look of grim determination. He was no longer staring at Tseng, but through him. Turning away, he crossed the room to where the gun lay and kicked it across the floor, spinning like a pinwheel until it came to rest at Tseng's feet.

"There's your gun," he said. "The door's open. Get out."

Tseng stopped to pick up the gun, and slid it into his holster. Rufus's glittering eyes tracked his every movement. Tseng's hands shook; he felt, heavy in his heart, the black weight of the nameless grief that sometimes pressed down on him after making love. This time, though, it had a name. He saw that Rufus was shaking too. His hat, that absurd brown homburg, was still sitting on the sofa where he'd placed it when he came in. He moved to take it. As he stepped forward, Rufus, though far beyond reach on the other side of the room, took a step back.

_I must let him have the last word, _thought Tseng.

Which meant there was nothing left to say. Tseng went, closing the door on his way out. As he stood waiting for the outer door to slide open, he heard the inner door being locked behind him.

* * *

_I think I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel with this fic, though at the speed I write it will probably take me another year to finish._

_As we enter the long home stretch, I thought I would start dedicating various chapters to my regular reveiwers who have helped, encouraged, corrected and inspired me over the years (my god, years!)._

_This one is for **CameoAmalthea,** whose insights have enabled me to understand Rufus better. _

_Thanks for reading._


	57. Turning and Turning

**Chapter 57: TURNING AND TURNING**

* * *

Tseng left the bunker, but he didn't go very far – only as far as the crates stacked at the corner of the corridor. Here he sat down to keep guard. Rufus, in his present state, was unlikely to be thinking clearly; weaponless as he was, he might yet try to leave the bunker, to seek revenge, or to claim his freedom, or driven by the blind impulse to flee. Tseng could not leave him unprotected.

There was, too, the invisible thread attaching him to Rufus, which would only let him go so far. He would wait here until he was relieved. If he remembered rightly, his relief would be Cavour.

He didn't know which he would have preferred: for Rufus to stay in the bunker, or try to come out. Every time he heard a noise that might have been a door opening, his heart leapt, disrupting his train of thought. His mind could not stop going over the things they had said to each other. Again and again he replayed certain lines, phrases, gestures, picking apart nuances, assaying for sincerity, substituting the words he should have said for the ones he now regretted.

Eventually, though, this fruitless mental circling wore him down. The thing was done. Not well done; a dignified end had probably been too much to hope for. But thoroughly done. It was done, it was over, and Tseng had no doubt that Rufus would, in time, be stronger for it. He was young and resilient; his recovery would probably be faster than either of them anticipated, and eventually – once he was freed from this prison - he would be grateful that Tseng had been wise for both of them. Out in the real world a young man like Rufus Shinra would never need to be lonely. Other lovers, more suitable in age and breeding, would take Tseng's place.

The thought of Rufus in some other lover's arms – making those uncivilised noises for them, calling out their name instead of his, allowing them to see the look of wonder that transfigured his face just before he came - awoke in Tseng a physical jealousy he had not known he was capable of feeling. The anguish passed through him in waves, like the sick chills of a fever. He could do nothing but wait for it to pass.

Rufus was young, but he was not. In the years leading up to Rufus he had had many lovers, some more memorable than others. In the years to come – if he survived this current crisis - there would undoubtedly be other lovers, but they would be pale imitations, just as every lover before Rufus had been a foreshadowing, an intimation. A man loved like this once in his lifetime, if he was lucky. Maybe, he thought, it was a sign that his time had come. What was there left to wish for?

Tseng remembered his gun. Had it been damaged when Rufus threw it across the room? Getting caught down here with a misfiring weapon would not be very clever. He took it out and made a visual examination. There were no obvious external signs of damage. He removed the magazine, cocked and pulled the trigger; the firing mechanism appeared to be functioning correctly. He put the magazine back in, cocked the trigger again, and squinted one-eyed down the barrel to see if a bullet was in the chamber. And the thought came to him – not that he would, not that he wanted to – but that the option was always there.

If Veld had ever caught him staring down the barrel of a loaded gun, he'd have grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and slammed his head against the nearest wall. _ Was_ it loaded? It hadn't sounded quite right. He couldn't see a bullet; he couldn't see anything. The light here, though harsh, was weak. One more he ejected the magazine. From his trouser pocket he drew the army knife they all carried and used his thumbnail to pull out the screwdriver attachment. Then he sat down on the ground and methodically took his gun to pieces, laying each piece out before him as he went along. When he finished taking it apart he put it back together, and found at the end that he had a screw left over, and so he had to dismantle it all over again; and thus he kept his hands and his mind occupied until Cavour came.

Tseng's bloody face and unkempt appearance – the fact that he was sitting here on the concrete floor of the corridor with pieces of his gun laid out all around him; the hole in the wall that Cavour would see the moment he walked into the bunker – these things could not be dismissed with a curt order to ask no questions. Some kind of explanation was called for. Tseng told Cavour that a monster had got into the bunker, a small one, quick-moving, of a type he'd never seen before, equipped with a stinger. It had stung Rufus, but Tseng had shot it, and then he'd given Rufus a double dose of hyper, to which Rufus had reacted quite strongly, falling into a rage which had forced Tseng to leave the bunker. The effects, he added, might not have worn off yet.

It was not a watertight lie, but it was the best he could think of. Hyper was disorienting and could sometimes induce temporary memory loss, so if Rufus were to spin a different story, his confusion could be blamed on the drug. Cavour accepted his superior's story without question – but still he hovered, as if he thought Tseng might need him.

"Go in," Tseng snapped. "I've got to get back to the office."

"Of course, sir." Cavour disappeared through the sliding wall that led to the bunker, and didn't come out again, so presumably Rufus had let him in. Tseng finished putting his gun back together, holstered it, and made his winding way through corridors, tunnels, stairwells, manholes, and Midgar's dawn streets, all the time feeling the invisible thread pull tighter and tighter, until, at last, he came to the public washrooms at the rear of Robson's. Here he retrieved the holdall from where he'd hidden it behind the ceiling tiles and changed into his work suit. It was badly wrinkled, and smelt faintly of urine and disinfectant. He didn't care.

* * *

The first thing Reno became aware of, even before he opened his eyes, was the ache in his left cheekbone. That whole side of his face felt puffy and tender, especially around the eye. He must have taken one hell of a punch. Slowly, gingerly, he slitted his good eye open. Everything looked blurry, but even so, this place – this room, this _bed_room – felt familiar. He'd been here before, more than once, but not for a while now. The last time…. The last time, he'd been…

Oh, yeah.

So. He was lying naked, hungover, with a black eye, in a bed in a love hotel in Wall Market.

That wasn't enough information to go on. Too many possible scenarios suggested themselves.

_Think, Reno._

The other bed had been slept in. Someone else had been here. Was he alone now? Felt like it. He held his breath and listened for the tale-tell sounds of another human presence. Nothing. She was definitely gone.

He sniffed the air, sniffed his armpit, breathed onto his palm and smelt that too. Then he sniffed the sheets. Results: inconclusive – though from the traces of alcohol and drugs he could detect in his sweat, he'd been in no state last night to perform up to his usual standard. Maybe she'd gone home in a huff? Had it even _been_ a she? He was pretty sure he'd caught a whiff of Confuse there along with everything else.

The last thing he remembered with absolute clarity was getting Veev a blue moogle from a claw machine. They must have gone to eat a curry at some point; the scent of turmeric lingered in his hair. He had a vague memory of entering the Honeybee Inn. He definitely remembered Rude being angry with him about something. And he thought he remembered seeing Rude hit that cunt Viljoen over the head with a champagne bottle, though it was possible he'd dreamt that happy scene.

Zack was dead. He remembered looking down at the body, and then… but that, too, felt like a dream.

He remembered Mink asking him if he called himself a man.

He remembered Veev looking at him with those big eyes of hers that made him feel so small, waiting for him to explain the inexplicable; he could see those eyes like they were still right there in front of him.

He remembered that Tseng was fucking Rufus Shinra.

He remembered how the realisation had come to him that Rude was lying. It hadn't hit him like a bolt from the blue, not like the way the revelation about Tseng's gun had sucker-punched him there in the office, leaving him looking like an idiot half-standing, half-sitting with his hands on the desk and his mouth hanging open thinking _oh fuck no didn't see that coming – _no, with Rude it had happened like it happened with Cissnei: the clues had been niggling in the back of his mind for a while – all the time, really – but they hadn't fallen into place, and then suddenly they had and the full picture had become clear to him.

He remembered burning with anger, smouldering like someone in a cartoon: smoke coming out of his ears and thunderbolts from his eyes. He was still angry, but it wasn't the same feeling. His anger had gone cold. He could think clearly now.

He sat up, rubbing his hands through his hair. Automatically he reached over to the night-table, groping for his goggles, and touched something small, hard, and round that made his fingertips tingle. His touch knocked it off the night-table; it hit the floor with a _toc_ and rolled noisily under the bed, leaving in its wake a faint trail of phosphorescence. Materia, of course; he'd realised what it was the moment he touched it, but what kind of materia it was he hadn't been quick enough to see. He would retrieve it in a minute; right now he was more interested in the other two objects on the night-table: a gun, and, tucked under the gun, a folded piece of paper. He pushed the gun to one side, picked up the paper, and opened it to find a note addressed to him, scrawled in cheap ball-point on the hotel's stationery. Her handwriting got bigger and messier as it went along, as if she'd been in a hurry.

'_Dear Reno, I promised Rude I would stay here with you but I'm sorry I can't. If you are wondering where your clothes are, he took them. We had a fight with PSM and the Honeybee Inn got trashed but, don't worry, I'm pretty sure nobody got killed. He took your weapons too. I don't want to leave you with nothing so I am giving you mine. There's a Sleep materia too. I am O.K. Take care. AVIVA.'_

He weighed the gun in his hand. It was one of the little snub-nosed .38s she carried as backup for when the enemy got past her knives, and a little too lightweight and temperamental for his style, but it was still better than bare fists, which was all Rude had left him with. It even had a full clip, god bless her little cotton Turk socks. Now, _that_ was what Reno called being a friend. Too bad she hadn't remembered to get him a packet of cigarettes while she was at it.

He was beginning to piece together what had happened. But why had Rude taken his clothes and his weapons? To keep him here, obviously. Because he was in danger? Or because he _was_ a danger? Well, screw that. No way was he going to sit here meekly waiting in the naughty corner until Rude decided his time-out was up. All he had to do was call the desk clerk and get them to send somebody next door to the clothes shop for a shirt and a pair of trousers. He'd charge it to the room. Rude could settle the bill later.

He was dialing the number for the front desk when he remembered that Rude had also taken his key card.

And his money.

And his cigarettes.

With no money, he'd have to bluster his way onto the train – _look me in the eyes, mate; don't you know who I am? – _a technique that would have worked like a charm in most sectors, but tended not to go down so well in Wall Market. Anyway he had no ID to prove who he was, no suit, no fucking nothing. And he was pretty sure that any PSM called to deal with the trouble would be only too happy to shoot him on the spot for attempting to impersonate a Turk. Reno, shot for pretending to be himself. That bastard Tseng might actually crack a smile at that.

All right then – he'd stow away, fold himself into a corner of the goods car or flatbelly on the roof. He'd done it often enough when he was a kid, before he'd signed his life away and got a free travelcard in return. But hold on – hadn't somebody said something about the trains being shut down last night because of a terrorist alert? Even if they'd started running again, they'd have switched to security mode. Without an ID, he wouldn't get past the first checkpoint. He had somewhere to go today, urgent business to attend to; the very last thing he wanted to do was draw attention to himself.

The service stairs in the central pillar – all four hundred and eighty of them, a last resort if ever there was one – were out of the question: the door at the foot of the pillar was locked with the one lock in all of Midgar that continued to defy the light fingers of Reno of the Turks. And even supposing he _did_ manage to get past the guards, pick the lock, and break in – without his keycard, he'd be attacked by the roboguards. Veev's six bullets wouldn't be much use against them.

And he couldn't go the long way round on foot, via the highway, because without his ID he wouldn't be let out through the sector gates.

Stuck.

Fuck.

He was stuck in the slums until Rude came back.

* * *

Rude had had a busy night. Just outside the gate to Corneo's mansion he'd been spotted and set upon by half a dozen squaddies armed with nothing but their fists, and though he'd managed to keep his feet and knock out three of them, he'd taken something of a drubbing before Skotch and the boys grew tired of watching the show and came out with their guns, firing in the air to drive the grunts away. They made Rude wait in the courtyard – rules were rules, they said, but Rude recognized this for what it was, a paradigm shift, the fallout from the boardroom struggle for power. Skotch did bring him a bottle of warm sake, however. Clearly Corneo was hedging his bets. Almost an hour passed, and then Corneo himself came out, wrapped in his embroidered silk dressing gown, his coxcomb of bleached hair messily ruffled, making it plain that he had been dragged away from something much more interesting to deal with this. Nevertheless, he offered Rude a cigar before telling him that he intended to send the bill for the night's damage right to the top. Let the Shinra allocate blame amongst his employees as he saw fit; Don Corneo was a businessman too, and the only thing that interested him right now was repairing and re-opening the Honeybee's Revuebar as fast as possible.

"Do whatever you think is best," said Rude. "My department will pay. You need to get the work done. Let us worry about the P.S.M."

"You'll make the transfer of funds today?" asked Corneo.

Rude nodded. He wasn't sure there was money left in the monthly budget to cover it, but Tseng really didn't have a choice, unless he wanted to lose this doubtful ally.

Corneo sent Rude on his way with Kotch and another lackey riding shotgun, but they encountered no further trouble. In the co-pilot's seat of Reno's helicopter they found a teenage lout, fast asleep; Rude threw him out and flew back to HQ, where the flight manager informed him that his department would be charged for the unauthorized hours. Down on the 48th floor he typed out a report of the night's events, confining himself to those details that were safe to commit to paper. What had passed between himself and Reno, spoken and unspoken; what Mink had said; what he'd had to do to Reno, and where Reno was now: these things he would only tell Tseng face-to-face. When he'd finished writing it, he printed out the report and left it with Skeeter to give to the boss.

"Has Mink called in?" he asked.

Skeeter said she hadn't come back yet. Nor had she phoned.

Rude tried her phone, but she wasn't answering. In the changing room he unrolled Reno's bundle, took out his rod and guns and knife and wire and other things, shut them in his locker, and then rolled up his suit again. He had a shower and changed. Then he lay down on the banquette in the TV lounge and napped for two hours. At half-past six exactly he woke, put Reno's suit under his arm, walked to the train station, and caught the next train down to Wall Market.

* * *

"Where _is_ everybody?" Tseng snarled.

Rosalind's eyes widened at the tone of his voice. Her face filled with alarm and concern; concern for _him_. In another moment, she'd be asking him if everything was all right. The prospect was unbearable. He was losing the battle to hold on to his temper: it took every ounce of self-control he had left not to punch his fist through the wall.

"Rude came in for a while earlier," she told him, keeping her voice calm and low. "He wrote a report. I have it here – "

Tseng snatched the file from her hands. "Where is Mink? Where's Veev? Where the hell is Reno?"

"Reno isn't actually on duty again until this afternoon -"

"Call them."

"I have, sir. They're not answering. And Reno's phone is turned off."

"What the _fuck _are they playing at?"

The fury in his voice projected from one end of the floor to the other. It penetrated the work room, where Knox and Skeeter exchanged glances, and reached all the way down to the lounge, where Hunter, who'd been dozing on the sofa, startled and lifted her head.

Rosalind did not flinch. Gently, but firmly, she said, "If it helps you to swear at me, sir, then go ahead."

Shame washed over him. She thought he was grieving for Zack. Tseng closed his eyes. His head – his whole body - felt like a pressure cooker. "Call them again," he said. "I'm going to my office."

He shut the door, sat down, and opened Rude's report, but it was hard to focus. His eyes skipped down the page. _The target – the Alexanders – the storm - the body, the body, the mako – Wall Market, Honeybee, Viljoen_ – something about a fight; oh, god, could they have chosen a worse time? What was wrong with those idiots? – _Don Corneo_, worse and worse_ – gil, gil, gil_ –

Tseng threw the report from him. Its papers scattered across the floor.

"I'm going to the gym," he told Rosalind as he went past on his way to the elevator. "I'll be an hour. Hold my calls."

* * *

The desk clerk at the Inn'n'Out assured Rude that everyone had passed a peaceful night. Rude felt a moment's irritation when he heard this. Here he'd been running his ass off trying to patch up this mess, while his partner, who'd started it, had spent the night catching up on his beauty sleep.

He took the key from the clerk, walked down the corridor, unlocked the hotel room door, opened it –

And got an eyeful of way more than he was ready for at this hour of the morning: full frontal Reno, naked except for his goggles and his shoes, sitting with his knees spread and his long arms akimbo in a chair he'd placed for this exact purpose less than three feet from the door. He'd evidently been lying in wait for some time.

"Jeez," said Rude, "Put a towel on."

Reno's head was weaving from side to side, like a snake deciding whether or not to strike. A fist-sized bruise encircled his bloodshot left eye. "You took my cigarettes, partner."

Rude dumped the suit into Reno's lap as he walked past. At once Reno began to feel through his clothes, seeking his key card. _Let it be here_, he prayed to nothing and no one. He knew it was hopeless to try hiding his agitation from Rude; all he could do was let Rude think the craving for nicotine was what drove his hungry fingers. In fact, he'd found the packet of Bahamuts almost immediately, but that thin hard rectangle of plastic continued to elude him.

Rude, meanwhile, had gone into the bathroom and come right out again. "Where's Veev?" he asked.

"Gone to work."

"I didn't see her at the station."

"She's probably having breakfast somewhere. That kid can eat."

"It's not there," said Rude point-blank, his eyes on Reno's frantic hands searching through the suit pockets.

_Shit. Shit shit shit._

Reno pulled out the Bahamuts, lit one with a match from the hotel matchbook and inhaled gratefully; straight away he could feel his frayed nerves beginning to settle. He dressed himself, tugging his trousers on over his shoes, not bothering to do up more than a couple of shirt buttons. Rude was playing his usual game of saying nothing, waiting for Reno to make the first move. Self-righteous bastard. Card thief. False friend. Fine; let him think he was calling the shots here. Reno's ultimate victory would be all the sweeter.

"So," Reno began. "My rod and shit. Back at the office, right?"

"I took the precaution."

"Mind telling me why?"

There were, Reno could see on his partner's face, many reasons, but after a moment Rude said, "You threatened to kill the Vice-President."

_I said that out loud? Double shit_.

"Did you do this?" Reno pointed at his eye.

"You don't remember?"

"Oh, sure I do; I'm just messin' with you, because now's the time for playing games," Reno replied with heavy-footed sarcasm.

"We were in a fight with the Garudas."

"Did you knock that cunt Viljoen out with a champagne bottle?"

"Yeah." A reluctant smile touched Rude's mouth. "I did."

"We were at the Honeybee?"

"Yeah."

"Veev wasn't hurt?"

"She's probably hungover, that's all. The revuebar took some damage. I had to promise Corneo we'd pay."

_Guess that'll be coming out of my salary for the next ten years_. _If I thought I was gonna live so long, I might care._

He took a long, long drag, exhaled and said, "So, partner - did you just come here to escort me back to the office? Or are you going to admit now that you lied to me?"

_Like we don't know that already._

"Huh. Come on," said Rude, and the look on his face elaborated:_ it's your own fault I had to lie to you. I knew you'd react like this._

"I'm calm now," said Reno. "See? Look at my hand. Steady. Calm."

Rude said nothing.

Reno didn't know which hurt more, Rude's treachery or his stupidity: the fact that Rude had lied to him about something as important as this, or the fact that Rude had known and done nothing, had thought it was OK or not their business or that turning a blind eye was the best way to protect everyone, or whatever he thought. What the _hell_ had he been thinking?

"How long have you known?" Reno asked him.

"After you raised it the first time. I started paying more attention. Then I saw it."

"How long's it been going on, d'you think? Months? Years?"

"Months." Rude sounded very certain.

"You don't think since before Corel, maybe? 'Cause that would explain a lot. 'Kill them all, but not Tseng'. Remember?"

"I think," said Rude slowly, as if he was still trying to figure it out, "For the V.P., it goes way back. You know how he always was. Couldn't keep away. But… he was just a kid then."

_That one_? Reno sneered inwardly. _He was born old._ Out loud he said, "I always kinda assumed the reason Tseng put up with all that spoiled brat crap was because he was paid to."

"For Tseng… it's recent, I think," said Rude.

Reno let out a controlled sigh. "You know, I would have put money on him being straight."

Not that that was the point. Tseng's tastes were the least important issue here, and if Reno had been in the mood for honesty he'd have admitted that he wasn't all that surprised to learn their Boss was omnivorous. He'd often wondered - the cold bastard was so secretive he had to be hiding something - but solid evidence had been hard to come by. Things done for work did not count. Tseng was indisputably attractive to women; Reno knew this because the women had told him so themselves, in elaborate erotic detail, sometimes, depending on how drunk they were. He'd seen the way eyes – eyes of both genders – followed those broad shoulders down a corridor or along a crowded city street, and he'd heard the same rumours everybody else had heard about Tseng's younger days, the days before Reno had known him: several girlish hearts broken; an older married woman who'd made a fool of herself. Plus, there was no getting round the fact of the Ancient -

Just how did _she_ fit into this new picture of things? What had they been risking their jobs and lives for all this last year trying to keep her boyfriend alive, if not to make her see what a noble kind of guy their Boss was? Reno had bitched about Tseng's motives, but all the same, the more he'd bitched the more he'd admired Tseng for showing his human side, for not backing down in the face of reason. The truth was, deep down Reno had kind of liked the idea that he and his fellow Turks were going way out on a heroic limb for the sake of their Boss's uncompromising romanticism. It had made him feel like they were something more than what everybody took them for.

All lies.

Rude was still saying nothing.

Reno said, "The Old Man'll kill him if he ever finds out."

"Yeah, I know."

"That little shit is bound to turn on him sooner or later. As soon as he gets bored of using him. Bored of screwing us all around _through_ him."

Rude looked thoughtful, and then said slowly. "I don't think it's that simple."

_Oh, god! How many times does this big idiot need to get his fingers burned? How long's it going to take for the message to reach his brain? _

Reno felt as if the top of his head was about to blow off. In his mind he could hear Tseng's cold angry voice saying, 'Maybe he's fallen in love. Did you consider that, Reno?' and it was so painful to remember, so agonisingly humiliating, that he flinched and said, "It just makes me sick, you know, to think of him being played for a fool. I thought he was smarter than that."

"Tseng's no fool," said Rude.

_Oh, that's right – he thinks __I'm__ the fool_. A mouthy troublemaker, that's what Tseng had called him. Every word of their conversation had been seared into Reno's memory. 'This is the kind of slander that can kill morale and destroy teams,' Tseng had said. 'Given our current situation, I'd have hoped even an moron like you, Reno, would see the need to keep your big mouth shut.' He'd even gone so far as to let Reno think the culprit was Veev, which was almost the most unforgivable thing of all. And all the time he'd been slinking off to do the very thing, _the very thing_ he was bare-faced denying: off to their safe-house hidden in the bowels of the plate to fuck their President's son, their prisoner, their bargaining chip, their one and only trump card, a boy he'd known practically since the kid was in diapers.

Why? Why? It couldn't be just the sex. Midgar was full of pretty boys. What was so special about this one? That was what Reno couldn't get his head around: how that spoiled, selfish, self-centred _brat_, who'd never given a shit about anyone's pleasure but his own, could have infatuated a man like Tseng to the point where he would put his own life in danger and undermine the bedrock of his department by lying to his senior Turks. Nobody's pretty ass was worth_ that _much.

To calm himself, he took another long suck on the cigarette, and then asked, "Well, we going or what?"

"We're not done talking."

"You want breakfast?"

Rude considered the question for a moment. "All right."

"Right. I'm just going for a slash. Then we'll go."

Reno went into the bathroom, but did not shut the door. They'd been working together far too long to bother with such niceties; shutting the door would only have roused suspicion, and Rude's vigilance was already on high alert. Reno used the toilet, then opened the sink taps so the rush of water would conceal the fact that the toilet wasn't flushing. The reason it wasn't flushing was because Reno had turned off the inflow pipe and drained the cistern several hours ago. Holding his breath, he lifted the cistern lid, being careful not to scrape porcelain against porcelain, and set it down against the wall, softly, softly; then he reached inside and withdrew Aviva's little pistol, together with the Sleep materia he had slotted into its grip.

From behind him came the sound of an indrawn breath, and a ripple of air breaking against the skin of his neck ahead of the punch bearing down on his head.

People said he moved like lightning, but to him it always felt as if time slowed down. He turned around, fitting the gun to his left palm, and saw Rude's fist moving forward frame by frame. In the time that elapsed between one frame and another, he ducked and stepped aside; Rude continue to hang there frozen, arm fully extended, the realization that he'd missed not yet having dawned in his eyes. Reno cast Sleep right into his face from less than a foot away. Behind the sunglasses, Rude's eyelids fluttered; Reno watched the spell take hold, saw the lines in Rude's face smooth out, saw his mouth lose its grimness, saw the strength leave his muscles. He folded to the floor, and time returned to its normal speed.

First Reno helped himself to Rude's keycard. After a moment's thought, he also took both his phones and his wallet. Then he dragged Rude by the ankles back to the other room. He considered heaving him up onto one of the beds, before deciding he had no interest right now in making Rude comfortable. Briskly he set to work stripping him of his clothes and weapons, rolling that big inert body from side to side to work the sleeves loose. Attached to the back of Rude's belt he found a pair of handcuffs. Had Rude been planning to use them on him? "I think this is what they call poetic justice, _partner_," he muttered as he cuffed Rude's hands together behind his back. Rude's tie became his gag; Rude's shirt, torn into strips, was used to bind his ankles.

Reno stood back and surveyed his handiwork. That should hold him for a while once the spell had worn off – long enough, at any rate, for Reno to do what he needed to do. He strapped on Rude's guns, slid Rude's knife into his sock, and put on his own jacket. Last of all he tucked Aviva's little pistol under his waistband. Carrying Rude's suit draped over one arm, he went out into the corridor, locked the door, and put the key in his pocket. Then he went to the front desk and laid three hundred gil on the counter.

"My colleague's had a rough night," he told the clerk. "So don't disturb him, huh? Just let him sleep through. Oh, and – " Reno handed the clerk Rude's suit – "Could you get these dry-cleaned?"

"Of course, sir. Right away."

_Heh_, grinned Reno viciously, _never say I don't do stuff for you, partner._

He stepped out into the quiet of a Wall Market morning, took a long deep breath, put his shoulders back, and set off to catch a train.

* * *

For forty minutes straight Tseng laid into the punching bag with both fists. His singlet was wringing wet, and the cut on his forehead burned from the salt of his sweat. He could taste salt on his lips, feel it sticking to his eyelashes. He wouldn't have said he felt better, but at least he no longer felt like killing the first thing that crossed his path.

Showered and dressed in a clean suit, he returned to the forty-eighth floor. Rosalind eyed the cut on his brow, but refrained from passing comment. "I called them again," she said. "Still no answer."

"Rude?"

"He's not answering either."

Tseng wasn't ready yet to worry about Reno, but this kind of dereliction of duty was completely out of character for Aviva and Mink. He returned to his office, gathered together the scattered pages of Rude's report, and sat down to study it minutely, seeking clues that might explain his Turks' behaviour.

Even couched in the colourless official language of the department, the report made for disturbing reading. Intellectually, Tseng could grasp the particulars, especially since Rude's description of Zack's corpse, and its dissolution, tallied closely with Cissnei's account of Lazard's death. But when he tried to picture Zack – not 'the target', but Zack, Zack his sometime mission partner and self-styled friend; when he remembered Zack as he had last seen him, nearly five years ago, in the old Sector Six children's park, playing at selling flowers with Aerith, her bouquets crammed into that ridiculous old pram he must have dug up from a scrapheap and refurbished for her, her face so trustingly anxious, afraid (for Zack's sake?) that they might never make a sale, Zack buoying her up with his enthusiasm, accosting passers-by with that irresistible smile; and Tseng watching the fun from the shadows, where a Turk belonged…

He could not imagine Zack dead.

_Concentrate on the report._

The luminescence – the green swirl of mako Rude described as emanating from the corpse – did that indicate a process of accelerated decay, the body rapidly releasing all the mako it had absorbed during the SOLDIER treatments and its years in Hojo's lab?

Or was it the lifestream?

Because Rufus thought -

_Concentrate on the report._

An essence of being, a flow of energy charged with an individual's memories, breaking free from the flesh as a river might burst through a breached dam, rushing headlong to rejoin the sea…

But then why wasn't the same phenomenon visible at every human death? Had it been a side effect of Hojo's experiments?

Or was it because Zack had had so much life in him?

Tseng's phone rang. Cursing the interruption, he flipped it open and put it to his ear. "Yes?"

"Tseng, sir? It's me, Aviva."

"Veev?" The relief he felt at hearing her voice was immediately followed by irritation. If she was alive, why hadn't she reported for duty? "Where are you? he demanded.

"Well, I'm – uh, I'm in Junon, sir. Yes, I'm in Junon." She sounded as if she hardly believed it herself.

"In _Junon_?" he exclaimed. "What are you doing in Junon?"

"I'm – uh – going to Costa del Sol, sir. For a – a holiday."

Tseng was temporarily robbed of speech, utterly taken aback that she could even think such a thing was possible. How many years had she been a Turk? And to announce it over the phone like this….

She must be having some kind of breakdown. It was the only explanation. The stress of these last months, Zack's death following so hard on the heels of Charlie's, must have pushed her over the edge. He forced himself to speak calmly. "Veev, listen to me. You're not going to Costa. You're coming back to Midgar. I need you here."

"I can't. I can't, sir."

"Can't?" A new fear struck him. "Is someone holding you under duress?" His mind raced through the possibilities: Scarlet – Avalanche – the army –

"Oh, no, sir!" she exclaimed. "No, sir – no, don't worry. I just… I need to get away for a while…"

How could she be in Junon? All the helicopters were accounted for, and the journey overland took at least twenty-four hours. Twelve hours ago she'd been at the Honeybee Inn with Rude and Reno. It wasn't physically possible for her to be in Junon. She was lying to him.

His temper snapped. "Aviva, I'm ordering you: tell me where you are."

"I bought a return ticket," she said huskily, and hung up.

Tseng stared at the phone in disbelief. Aviva – _Veev! - _had just flat out refused to obey a direct order. Of all of them, she was absolutely the last one he'd have expected to defy him. Something was deeply wrong. His impulse was to run out, grab Rosalind, sling her into the next available helicopter and order her to bring Aviva back. But he couldn't. He had no idea where she was. He'd have to put a trace on her –

With a sinking sense of futility, Tseng dialed her number, and wasn't surprised to find her PHS had gone dead. She must have pulled out the battery just now. He tried her other phone, the untraceable black market one, but she'd switched it off. She'd cut herself off.

His best guess was that she was still in Midgar, but with Reno and Rude and Mink also nowhere to be found, he didn't have the manpower to go looking for her. Reno was most likely sobering up somewhere, nursing whatever injuries he'd sustained in that stupid fight and pretending to Rude, who of course was keeping him company, that his unwillingness to return to the office had nothing to do with Cissnei. The pattern was a familiar one. He'd show up eventually. Rude would make sure of it.

Tseng tried calling Mink, but both her phones were turned off. According to the report, she'd been last seen heading off alone after Strife. Either she was still working on that mission (best case scenario: she'd turned off her phones for secrecy's sake) or she'd completed it and was now… shacked up somewhere? Drinking to forget somewhere? Taking her own leave of unauthorized absence?

There was nothing he could do about it. The tracking application in the PHS only worked if the phone was on. He could get the technicians down in ComTech's Security Division to run a positioning on her phone, but if he did that, the Board would quickly be informed that he had an awol Turk (_four _awol Turks) on his hands, and Scarlet would have the excuse she needed to move in for the kill.

Tseng filed Rude's report in the back of Zack's folder, returned the folder to the shelf, and stood for a moment, thinking. Mink and Aviva were beyond his reach. He would not waste his energies worrying about them right now. Other, more pressing matters, where his actions might yet make a difference, demanded his immediate attention.

What should be his next move? He'd been outplayed over last two rounds, but the game was by no means lost. He still had pieces on the board, and something of incalculable value held in reserve. First, though, he needed to go see Don Corneo. He would honour the commitment Rude had made, in cash, today, like an honest man; he would take the money from his personal account in order to pay this debt, and thus (he hoped) improve the chances that Wall Market would remain, if not the Turks' safe haven, at least neutral ground.

* * *

"I have to go out," Tseng told Rosalind fifteen minutes later.

_Again?_ said her eyes. They travelled from his face to the large holdall he was gripping in his right hand, and back to his face again, but she did not ask out loud.

"I may be a while," he said. "Unless it's an emergency, hold all my calls."

And so, while Rude lay naked, bound and gagged in a love hotel in Wall Market,

And Cissnei slept like the dead in an upstairs bedroom in the late Legend's favourite bodega,

And Rufus, entombed at the heart of his father's labyrinth, stretched out on his bed and stared up at the ceiling with burning eyes,

And the little purring ginger cat pressed its soft warmth against his aching shoulder,

And Elena, with a sleepy curse, reached over the body of a man she hardly knew to grab and shake the alarm clock that had failed her,

And Aviva sat in a waiting room, ticket in hand, clasping to her chest a small suitcase that contained all her worldly possessions -

And Reno, with two guns under his armpits and another cold against the small of his back, stepped out of the executive carriage onto the Sector One platform,

And Tifa with her vengeful heart walked out the door of Seventh Heaven, locked it, double-checked that her purse was in her bag, and set off for the train station, with no premonition of what destiny awaited her there,

And Mink, who had followed him…

(But nobody knew what she was up to),

While all this was going on, Tseng walked out through the revolving doors of the First Midgar Bank, the holdall in his hand three times as heavy as it had been when he went in. He made his way to the station and entered the same carriage Reno had vacated exactly seven minutes earlier, choosing a seat directly opposite from the one where Reno had sat. He placed the holdall on the seat beside him. Scarlet's two spies (they travelled in pairs now) had boarded the next carriage down; he was aware of them watching him surreptitiously through the window in the interconnecting door, but he was beyond caring. Let them report his movements to their pay-mistress, for all the good it would do her. If they tried to interfere with him, he would shoot them. Bona fide Turk business was what took him to the slums this morning, and she had no way of proving otherwise.

It was now about ten o'clock in the morning. He literally could not remember the last time he had slept. The swaying of the carriage and the rhythmical clickety-clack of the rails became a mantra emptying his mind – but he didn't realize he'd nodded off until the braking of the train jerked him awake. He looked through the window, and saw that they were pulling in at Wall Market station.

For Tseng, the walk to Corneo's mansion felt like old times: a bag heavy with gil and other precious papers slung casually over his shoulder, two enemies dogging his footsteps, his every nerve alert for any hint of danger. He had not spoken face to face with the Don since the day he was promoted to Director of the Turks, though the millionaire whoremonger had sent him a bouquet of red Mideelian roses and a box of aromatic Gongagan cigars to mark the occasion. The bearing of messages to underworld bosses, the manual delivery of bribes and payoffs, were tasks for those lower down on the Turk hierarchy, not – normally - for the Head of their Department.

He expected to be made to eat humble pie, and was prepared to do so; compared to everything else he had sacrificed, or might yet have to surrender, swallowing his pride was no great hardship. However, as soon as he arrived at the mansion he was shown straight into the downstairs parlour (Scarlet's spies were left kicking their heels outside the gates), and was halfway through unpacking the money when Don Corneo came in. The sight and smell of all that gil, stacked in tidy bricks on the table, instantly put the Don in an agreeable mood.

"Director!" he exclaimed, arms thrown wide in welcome. "You honour my humble abode! Long time no see!" Tseng endured the Don's hearty embrace, the friendly kiss on either cheek, the unpleasant tickling of his moustache and the pungent musk of his hair pomade. "Come, let's sit down," Corneo invited him. "One of the boys will bring us some tea."

The tea Kotch set before them was served in delicate gold-rimmed china cups. Corneo's gave off a strong smell of sake. He slurped it loudly, holding the handle by the tips of his fingers, pinky finger crooked in the air. Tseng forced himself to swallow, trying to make his gritted teeth look like a smile, and wondered how young Corneo had been when he'd had that broken heart tattooed into his head.

At first the Don talked generalities, as one manager to another: the effect of unpredictable rate hikes on his profits; the difficulty of finding reliable staff; the unwillingness of today's young people to work hard. Soon he shifted the topic to Shinra, praising Rude's good manners, complaining about Reno, asking after Cavour ("the rascal. He was one of my best, and you poached him from me. You still owe me for that, Director") and also Hunter. "Hoo-boy, that pretty chickadee is sitting on a fortune. Does she have any idea how much more she could be earning working for me? And all she'd have to do is lie on her back all day. She could keep the suit on, too; I've got customers who'd paid through the nose for that. Ha, ha, Director, relax; I'm just having fun with you."

Eventually Corneo worked his way round to asking about the Board. "I heard," he said, twisting the big gold ring on his thumb, "That things aren't so hunky-dory upstairs."

Tseng's teeth were still gritted. "Rumours."

"I heard the Old Man's losing his grip."

"You heard wrong," Tseng lied.

"Well, that's funny," said Corneo, "Because my hearing's usually pretty good. Even all the way down here, I can hear the sound of knives being sharpened right up at the top of Shinra Tower, and it's making me nervous. Palmer's all right; he pays his tab on time and the girls like him. But I don't like what I'm hearing about Scarlet getting so cosy with the Old Man. She's a frigid harpy if ever there was one. What she needs is a good seeing to, if you know what I mean, but where's the man with the balls to take that job on? Oh, boy, I get the willies just thinking about it. She'd shoot your nuts off for target practice before you got anywhere near her. And I hear she leads that sick pervert Heidegger around on a _very_ short leash. Is it true the boy's dead?"

Tseng's hands tightened round the china teacup. "Rufus? No."

"Not that you'd tell me if he was. Good-looking boy, if I remember," added the Don in the manner of one accustomed to evaluating all flesh as a commodity. "How old is he now? Twenty-one? Twenty-two?"

"Twenty-two. He's in Wutai at the moment. Studying."

"You need to get him back to Midgar before it's too late. I'm thinking of my own business, you understand. You, me, and Commander Veld, we've always worked well together. You scratch my back, I scratch yours, know what I mean? We respect each other's boundaries. I don't like seeing PSM throwing their weight around in my Market. I don't like them stopping and searching my people. They bust up my premises and don't apologise. They don't offer me any compensation. Heidegger thinks he can walk all over me. Whereas you Turks – " Corneo swept a hand over the stacks of gil – "you put your money where your mouth is."

When it was time for Tseng to go, the Don insisted on walking him to the door, one heavy arm draped in a friendly fashion around Tseng's shoulder. Tseng bore it without complaint.

"What else have you got in that bag?" the old pimp asked curiously.

"Papers. I have another call to make. Is there a back door I could use? There are some people out front I'd rather not see."

Don Corneo chuckled and laid a finger alongside his nose. "Say no more. Skotch, show our visitor the private exit, would you?"

Skotch led Tseng down the long flight of stairs to the basement and through the very private room that was one of the Don's most discreet money-earners. A door hidden inside an empty fireplace opened onto the sewers. Tseng produced his pocket torch, and the two of them began to make their way through the underground maze of grates and sluices. Far away in the distance some creature could be heard bellowing, its rage amplified by the echoing tunnels, but they encountered no monsters, and eventually came to another door leading into a railway service tunnel, which in turn brought them to the Sector Five station. Here Skotch left Tseng, with a gruff "Wotcher, guv," by way of farewell before turning back the way they had come. The railway guard was asleep in his ticket booth, so Tseng jumped over the turnstile to avoid swiping his keycard, and walked out into the busy little marketplace.

Straight ahead of him stood the old camper van selling bangles and hair-ribbons, and beyond it the lane that led to her house. To his right was a concrete sewer pipe, where a vagrant – a harmless lunatic – had recently made his nest. Over his head hung a vast LCD screen running a continuous propaganda loop of news and advertisements. Glancing up, Tseng saw two huge blue eyes smiling down at him. Almost immediately the Old Man's face dissolved into the Shinra Information Network logo, and then cut to an interview with Colonel Hugo Viljoen that had been filmed yesterday afternoon. Viljoen's mouth moved silently. His words appeared in subtitles at the bottom of the screen. _Insane, monster – brave men, sacrifice – Midgar safe once more. _

No mention of SOLDIER, of course.

Though it had been such a long time, he could have made his way to her church blindfolded. The scent of the flowers grew stronger as he approached – though perhaps that was only in his imagination. She wasn't there; he knew it the moment his first footfall echoed around the empty nave. With the holdall in his left hand, and his gun in his right, he made a perimeter check, and then sat down in one of the pews to wait for her.

* * *

_Author's note:  
__The chapter's title is taken from "The Second Coming" by W.B. Yeats. This poem, for me, has many strong connections with FFVII, an association which I like to think is a testament to the game's profound themes rather than my own frivolity. __Here's the first bit:  
"Turning and turning in the widening gyre  
__The falcon cannot hear the falconer;  
__Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;  
__Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,  
__The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere  
__The ceremony of innocence is drowned..." _

_As always, thanks for reading!_


	58. Hope Deferred

**CHAPTER 58: HOPE DEFERRED**

* * *

"What the hell happened?" asked Reno, staring at the bullet hole in the bunker wall.

Cavour, who had unlocked the door to let him in, explained, "The Boss shot a monster. I've made some coffee. Want some?"

"How did a monster get in?" Reno felt vaguely insulted. First off, he'd built this bunker with his own hands, and he sure as hell hadn't left any security breaches big enough for a monster to get through. Secondly, he smelt a rat, and he was getting pretty tired of people acting like there was no rat when the goddamn rat shit was lying right there in front of their very eyes.

"Same place the cat gets in and out, I guess." Cavour was referring to the back corner of the kitchen, where a piece of plaster had broken off close to the floor, leaving a gap about the size of the cat's head – and that wasn't counting its ears.

"That's impossible," said Reno. "No monster could fit through there." He was thinking, _what is this bullshit?_

"Some of those monsters are stretchy buggers," said Cavour. "I saw a chuse tank in the train graveyard once squeeze through a six-inch pipe. Tseng said this one was small and fast. He said he'd never seen one like it before."

"Huh. It was probably a cockroach."

Reno's mind had shifted up a couple of gears, trying to make sense of this latest twist to a case he thought he'd solved. He was _so sure_ he'd finally put together the full picture – and then fate just had to go and throw a bloody spanner in the works, didn't it? Or in this case, shoot a bullet through a wall. _Story of my fucking life, _he thought.

"Somebody should really nail that hole up," said Cavour. He meant the one in the kitchen, which they'd left alone up till now so that Rufus's cat could go outside the bunker to crap.

Tseng, Reno reasoned, must have been here when the gun was fired. Cavour, obviously, had not: he was only telling Reno what Tseng had told him. Tseng therefore knew the real reason why the gun had been fired, but he'd made up this cock-and-bull story for Cavs, and Cavs had swallowed the lie unquestioningly because… because why would anyone doubt the Boss?

"You should put a cold steak on that eye," said Cavour. "What happened? Lucky hit?"

"Bar fight." Reno was thinking that the only reason for Tseng to lie was because the hole in the wall must have something to do with Rufus. Who else would Tseng cover up for? The little shit was probably the one who'd pulled the trigger.

"So anyway," said Cavour, "What are you doing here? Aren't you off till this afternoon?"

"Yeah, but we're short-staffed today. Rude hasn't come in yet, lazy git. Tseng wants you back at HQ, stat. He asked me to take over for you here."

"Are you sure?"

"He woke me up specially to tell me so himself. It's not like I have anything better to do in my time off, is it? So do me a favour and get moving. I don't want the Boss thinking I dragged my arse getting down here."

"You won't hear any arguments from me. Just let me save what I was working on."

Reno followed Cavour into the office space. He stood for a moment studying the ruined monitor, and then turned to the other Turk. "Cavs - how's Tseng taking it?"

"You mean about Zack? Like you'd expect. He must've felt good blowing the crap out of that monster."

"But he's… okay?"

"He was looking kind of bashed-up when I relieved him. He said he had to give the V.P. a double hyper for the monster sting and Rufus freaked out and whaled on him. He wasn't looking so good either. The V.P., I mean. You know what it's like coming down from a dose of hyper. He's asleep now. Man, I wish I could catch some shut-eye. These last twenty-fours have been nothing but shit piled on more shit."

"You said it."

Cavour collected his jacket and left. The door clicked shut behind him. Reno locked it, put the key in his pocket, and then continued to stand in the middle of the floor, deep in thought.

So, Tseng and Rufus had been fighting. And not just with words, the Vice-President's weapon of choice, but with fists. With bullets. What could have rocked their little love nest badly enough for that?

Reno could think of a lot of things, but there was only one sure way to find out. Drawing Aviva's handgun from the small of his back – since for all he knew, Rufus might still be armed – he approached the bedroom door and pressed down on the handle, expecting it to be locked. It wasn't. As soundlessly as possible, he eased it open.

At the far end of the room, a double bed had been made by taking one bunk bed down off the other and pushing them together. Rufus had got Tys and Skeeter to do this for him months ago, maintaining that it was absolutely inhumane to ask him to spend even one more sleepless night cramped in a bed that was less than five feet wide. Tys and Skeeter had laughed as they told this story to their colleagues, though it had seemed to Reno they were laughing less at Rufus's princely ways (which were only to be expected) than at themselves for being ordered around so easily. It was like they all kept forgetting the little shit was their _prisoner_: he was supposed to be in their power, not the other way around.

Rufus was lying on the bed with his back towards the door, apparently asleep. He didn't stir when Reno came in. The little ginger cat, which had been curled on Rufus's pillow, immediately sat up, without any of the usual yawning and stretching, and stared warily at Reno. Ears pricked forward, tail wrapped tightly round its paws, it followed his every movement with its depthless, enigmatic eyes, weighing him, judging him.

Of course the rational, informed part of Reno's mind knew the cat wasn't judging him. Cats couldn't reason; a cat's brain was a primitive network of nerve fibres no bigger than his thumb, and the reason its eyes were blank was because there was nothing going on in there. But something about this cat had always reminded him of Tseng - or else there was something about Tseng that reminded him of a cat; at any rate, he couldn't shake off the feeling that the cat was standing guard over Rufus; that it knew exactly why he was here, and had been waiting for him.

Well, thought Reno, if it knew why he was here, then it knew more than he knew himself. He couldn't kill the Vice-President. Maybe he could have done it yesterday in the heat of his drunken fury, although he suspected Veld's conditioning would have kicked in at the critical moment, freezing his finger on the trigger. Now, in the cold light of day – or rather the livid light of the bunker – he couldn't recover that feeling of righteous, passionate outrage. Today his Turk self was back in the driving seat, and he knew that the Turks needed Rufus. Without Rufus, they'd have nothing left to bargain with. The President wouldn't care which Turk had killed his son, or that Reno had been acting on his own; the Old Man saw them as a single entity anyway, a monster with many heads and one heart. If Reno killed Rufus now, he would be sentencing his entire department to certain death.

Plus, killing Rufus would be doing Scarlet's work for her, and that kind of stuck in Reno's craw.

Laying hold of a chair that was close at hand, he turned it round so that it was facing the bed and sat down in it. The cat's eyes tracked his every move. Rufus was breathing deeply and evenly, but just a little too quickly; he was faking sleep. Fine. Let him stew. Reno wasn't ready yet to confront him. He still had some more thinking to do.

What was he doing here, if he couldn't kill Rufus? What did he want? He would have said that he wanted to put everything right, so the Department could again be the way it had been before, but he'd been knocking around this world long enough to know that trying to turn the clock back was a mug's game. When it came right down to it, he wanted what he'd always wanted: to understand. Answers. The truth. Something that would open Tseng's eyes once and for all: a confession of guilt from Rufus's own conniving, manipulative mouth – and if he had to reduce Rufus to a bleeding pulp in order to get it from him, so much the better. Rufus would probably have him killed the moment he became President, but that far-off event was hedged around with so many 'ifs' that it wasn't worth worrying about. And it wasn't like Reno's long-term career prospects were looking so hot right now, anyway.

Raising his gun, he took aim at the back of Rufus's skull and cocked the trigger, loudly. The little cat flinched at the sound. Rufus moved his head slightly, just enough to let Reno see the corner of his eye. "Ah," he said tonelessly, "It's you. Of course," and turned his face to the wall once more.

"Oi. Look at me, you piece of shit," said Reno.

"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather your face was not the last thing I see."

"I want to talk to you."

Rufus took a deep breath. A shudder ran through his body. The cat got to its feet and arched its back, stretching as if it was thinking about going somewhere. Then Rufus rolled all the way over, and Reno saw his face full on.

He looked awful. Worse than awful; he looked dead, like a day-old corpse taken out of a freezer drawer; like salt had been rubbed in his eyes. The pain and hopelessness in those eyes recalled to Reno's mind the face of the survivor he had shot in Nibelheim, blackened skin, white teeth, boiled eyes - The image was so vivid that he had to look away, sickened and angry, though the anger was mostly at himself. Whatever had happened here, it couldn't be _that_ bad. This was not some hapless victim. This was _Rufus_ fucking _Shinra, _protected from the consequences of his actions by his forcefield of money and charm. The little shit had no fucking _right_ to look like that –

"Just shoot me and get it over with," said Rufus. "I'm sure you're in a hurry to report back to Tseng."

His mind still reeling from the shock of Rufus's appearance, Reno forgot that with the V.P. it was always wise to count to ten before you spoke. He blurted out, "What, you think _Tseng_ sent me?"

Something subtle changed in Rufus's expression. Life flickered in his eyes, which seemed – even though Reno knew this was impossible – to gain colour, and become a little more blue than they had been before. If this was all an act (and Reno was not ready to discount that possibility) then it was pretty fucking impressive.

"I see he didn't," Rufus observed. "You must be here on your own account, then."

"But you thought it was Tseng who sent me. Why would you think that?"

"It's nothing. Forget I said it."

Reno leaned forward, gripping the gun more firmly and aiming it between Rufus's eyes in a deliberate attempt to emphasize just exactly who was in charge here. "I'm not going to ask you again. Why would Tseng want to kill you?"

"That was my mistake. Evidently I'm not yet a total liability."

"Yeah, well, that's a matter of opinion. And you can wipe that smugass smirk off your face, you little shit. I know what's going on between you and him. "

Rufus's face contorted; for one dreadful moment, Reno thought he was going to burst into tears. Instead, he started laughing. He laughed as if it hurt him inside; he curled in on himself, knees drawn to his chest like he had a gut-ache and one arm wrapped around his right shoulder, which, Reno now noticed, was scrunched up near his ear at a funny angle. Rocking back and forth with helpless laughter, he looked like a little kid – but he wasn't a kid; he was a big bloke, almost six foot, not far off Reno's height, and that just made it even more disturbing. The cat wasn't happy either. It had quickly moved away when Rufus started laughing, and was now perched on the very edge of the bed, watching him with disgust, its ears slightly flattened and its tail fluffed.

_He's lost it_, thought Reno. _He's gone crazy._

And then he wondered, _What the hell did Tseng do to him?_

Quickly he pushed the treacherous thought away. "Stop that," he said. "C'mon. That's sick. Stop it."

"Your timing – is impeccable," Rufus gasped between spasms of laughter.

"This isn't funny."

"Yes it is. _You_ are. You've no idea. You've missed the boat. The party's over. You're too late, Reno. Tseng finished with me. About ten hours ago, to be precise."

Reno's fingers clenched convulsively around the butt of the gun. "_What_?"

"He was afraid this would happen. He knew you'd work it out. He decided I wasn't worth the risk."

_Fucking hell_, thought Reno inarticulately – and then he remembered the gun in Tys's hand yesterday afternoon (only yesterday?) and wondered if that had been what had tipped Tseng off. Tseng, always erring on the side of caution –

"He felt he had to make a choice." Rufus had stopped laughing, though once or twice something like breathlessness convulsed his chest. "Me or the department. One or the other. He chose you. Congratulations, not that the outcome was ever really in doubt. If you're planning to shoot me I really wish you wouldn't take all day about it. To be honest, a bullet in the brain would come as a relief right now. I'm tired of thinking."

Reno would have loved to think that Rufus was bluffing, or maybe just didn't believe he'd do it. In his experience, there was only one man who had ever succeeded in putting honest-to-god fear into Rufus Shinra's eyes – and Tseng had already been at work here: by the look and sound of things, there wasn't much left for Reno to do. Of course, with the V.P. you could never be one hundred per cent sure of anything, but Reno had conducted enough interrogations over the years to be pretty confident he could tell the difference between when a man was bluffing and when he truly didn't give a shit any more what you did to him because there was no way things could possibly get any worse.

Reno shifted in his seat, finding a more comfortable angle for his gun arm. He missed his mag-rod; he wasn't used to questioning suspects without that familiar weight in his hand. "OK, " he said, "Listen. I'm not gonna kill you, because that would just make things worse for a whole lot of people who deserve better. But I could shoot your leg off. I got materia, so you wouldn't bleed to death. But you'd never walk again."

"Do you suppose I care? It's clear to me now that I'm never going to leave this place."

"Tell me why you think Tseng would want you sorted."

"To stop me from escaping and killing my father, of course."

"Don't fuck with me, Rufus, I'm warning you."

Even to his own ears the threat sounded hollow. Rufus's lip curled contemptuously. He rolled away onto his back. "Why is it," he inquired of the ceiling, "That everyone always thinks I'm lying, when all I ever do is speak the truth?"

Reno only half-believed him. Right from the very beginning he'd been afraid that Rufus might try in some way or other to seduce Tseng into a conspiracy against the President; now he had the confession he wanted, straight from Rufus's own mouth, which meant he ought to be feeling vindicated - but instead he got the sense that Rufus was subtly mocking him, that he was being deliberately misled. There was something obvious here that he wasn't seeing.

"Are you telling me," he said slowly, because he wanted to be perfectly clear on this point, "That you and Tseng had a fight because you threatened to kill your father?"

"No one else is prepared to do it."

"Haven't you learnt a fucking thing?"

Rufus did not deign to reply.

"Who fired the gun?"

"It wasn't Tseng."

"Were you trying to kill him?"

"I didn't miss, if that's what you're implying. I wanted to kill him but I couldn't do it. I threw the gun and it went off. He took the gun and left. That's all."

"Where did he go?"

"I have no idea. Back to work? Not that he was ever away from it when he was with me. If you want me to hazard a guess, I'd say he probably went straight down to Sector Five."

"To Aerith?" That would make sense, Reno supposed. Tseng wouldn't leave it to anyone else to tell her that Zack was dead.

Rufus's mouth twisted in a strange smile, more like a wince of pain, gritting his teeth. For a moment Reno was afraid he was going to start that crazy laughing again. But Rufus had himself under control now. "I should think so, don't you?" he said. "You know our Tseng is a man of principle. He pulled out all the stops to save Zack Fair, which means he can go to her now with a clean conscience. She's always been the one he really wanted. He's obsessed by her. And you know how tidy he is. He likes to finish one thing before he starts another. Tseng's very - professional that way."

The little cat jumped onto Rufus's chest, turned around and around, and settled itself under his chin. Rufus laid a hand on its back and closed his eyes. The cat's yellow eyes slitted half-shut, but it was still watching Reno closely; he recognized that deceptively sleepy look, because it was his own. The sound of its purr filled the room.

That damned cat had always been an uncanny little bugger, right from the moment he'd saved its life, when that cripshay had turned up just in the nick of time to drop its potion. Coincidence? Reno didn't think so. Turks didn't believe in coincidence. He'd taken it from the train graveyard to his apartment, and from there it had gone worming its way into the office, draping itself all over Rude, somehow getting Tseng to tolerate it, and padding around the building on its silent paws, going wherever it damn well pleased. Impressing the President with its rat-killing skills. Purring smugly while the girls fawned all over it. One moment it was lashing out at you for no reason, the next it was acting like nothing had happened, twining itself in friendship round your ankles. It wasn't even a _big_ cat, but it had an ego the size of a behemoth. It had made a beeline for Rufus, as if it smelled power coming off him the way other cats could smell an open can of tuna from the other end of the house. And now look at it, snuggled up round the Vice-President's neck like it had a natural-born right to be there.

It was supposed to be Cissnei's cat.

So maybe it belonged down here. There wasn't an inch of this bunker that didn't hold memories of her, even though she'd never set foot in it. Every nail he'd hammered, every panel he'd fitted, every socket he'd wired, he'd been thinking of her. At night he'd drunk himself to sleep thinking of her, and spent the night dreaming of her, and woken up still thinking of her. This bunker… He'd never realised it before, but it was like a kind of tomb. He'd made it that way.

And this interrogation, this – this _weird _three-way conversation he was having with Rufus and his own head… It felt familiar. The same names kept cropping up. Zack. Aerith. The same old questions.

_Do you love her?_

_ Fuck it, I don't even know what that means, man._

Reno wished Rude were here now, and felt a momentary pang of regret that he'd been forced to leave him down in Wall Market. If Rude were here now, he would know what to think. He'd be able to tell whether or not Rufus's show of jealousy was genuine. It _sounded_ like the real thing. But what the hell did Reno know? It was so long since he'd felt something like that. His circuits were almost burned out. It was kinda funny, in a way. He remembered somebody – Veev? – trying to tell him once that the reason he liked getting wasted was so he wouldn't have to feel things, when in fact it was the other way round.

"Rufus?" he said.

"What?"

"Why Tseng?" As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realised it was a stupid question whichever way you looked at it. Evidently Rufus thought the same, for though he gave Reno a wary sidelong look of the _did you seriously just ask me that? _kind, he said nothing.

Reno tried rephrasing: "I mean, are you even gay?" This was closer to the question he was trying to get out, though it still wasn't right. "Because I seem to remember you used to like fucking girls, once you got over that thing you had about being touched. Or were they just a show you put on to fool your daddy?"

The cat got to its feet, arched its back, spread its toes. Rufus had to push its tail away from his mouth in order to reply. "The fact that you're pointing a gun in my face, Reno, does not give you the right to ask impertinent questions."

"You know, though, I kinda think it does. You got any idea how much it hurts to get a bullet through your kneecap?"

"Well, then, either shoot me or go away."

As if to emphasis Rufus's contempt for the threat Reno posed, the cat chose that moment to yawn widely, baring all its sharp little white teeth. For some reason, the animal's show of disdain did what Rufus could not, igniting a spark of yesterday's anger in Reno's gut. "How can I fucking shoot you with that cat watching me?" he exclaimed. "I told you not to fuck with Tseng. I told you what would happen. Why'd you have to do it? What the _fuck_ is wrong with you? _Anyone_ else, it wouldn't have been so bad. You could have had anyone. All you had to do was ask. I even offered to fix it up for you, but Tseng wouldn't let me, and now," Reno shouted, "I know why. Why couldn't you leave him alone, you sick fucker? Don't you have any respect for what he does? He's out there busting his balls trying to save this company for you and keep us all alive, and you – you – you treat him like a – like a – fuck, I can't even say it."

"My, I had no idea you felt this way," Rufus sneered.

"I told you he belongs to us. I _told_ you to keep your hands off him. If your Old Man ever finds out about this, he'll destroy him. Doesn't that mean anything to you? Or maybe you get off on that. Is that it? Like that thing, that bug thing, that preying mantis, chewing people up and spitting them out when they're no use to you any more."

"It's only the female mantis who eats her sexual partners," Rufus pointed out. "Or is that spiders?"

"I don't give a shit which one it is; I'm telling you I see through your little game. You've been manipulating him all along, any way you can. You don't give a flying fuck what happens to him or to anyone as long as you get what you want, and this whole set-up – this is all part of some fucked-up power game you're playing with your Old Man. Isn't it?"

"You can think what you like about me," Rufus replied. "I really don't care. But I do need to put you straight about one thing. You appear to be suffering from the same misapprehension I was labouring under with regard to Tseng's… feelings. The fact is, I was just another job to him. He was never in any danger. He was acting all the time under my father's orders."

"Bullshit."

"No. Tseng told me so himself. My father's instructions to you regarding me were to keep me quiet and occupied, and let me have whatever I wanted, within reason. Tseng – did that."

"You seriously expect me to believe that?"

"Of course I don't," said Rufus wearily, returning his gaze to the ceiling.

"But it doesn't make any sense." Reno would have liked nothing better than to clutch at this straw Rufus was offering him: to believe that Tseng had simply been following orders. Gotta keep the Old Man's kid smiling. Whatever it takes, yo; wasn't that their motto? Yet even as he reached for it, the flimsy straw fell apart in his hands. Rufus's father would never have issued an order like that. Maybe if Hunter had been the one - or even Veev – or if they'd been told to bring in a hooker – yes, Reno could have believed that. But _Tseng_? Not possible. The Old Man's revulsion for anything that smacked of queer was well known. Which made it kind of ironic that Skeeter was his favourite Turk - but then again, Reno supposed, when you ruled the world everything probably looked exactly the way you wanted it to look. The Old Man would never suspect that someone he liked could actually be the thing he despised.

On the other hand, maybe this order Rufus was talking about hadn't specified anyone in particular. Maybe it had been more along the lines of _do what you need to do to keep him happy_, and what made Rufus happy, it turned out, was Tseng. But then again, if it was an official assignment, why would Tseng be worried about the other Turks finding out? Why would he go to such lengths to hide it? Reno could understand Tseng not being upfront with him at the beginning; the Boss was under no obligation to keep his subordinates informed about his personal missions. But why go on pretending even after Reno had figured it out? _Hey, Boss, we have a problem: I think the V.P.'s screwing with one of us. Yes, Reno, I know, and I have the matter in hand, because it's me._ Why couldn't he just have said that? It wasn't like they didn't know how to keep a secret. Orders were orders, and if fucking their V.I.P. prisoner had become yet another of their leader's many duties, nobody was going to hold that against him. They'd all been there themselves.

"What you're saying, it just doesn't make any sense," Reno repeated. "If it was work, he'd have told me. The shit we do for work doesn't count. Everybody knows that."

Rufus made no reply. You might have thought he hadn't heard. But Reno noticed the little things: how his hand had stopped moving on the cat's back; how his breathing had become quick and shallow and excited; how the sinews in his neck had tensed. The cat turned its head to look at him. It seemed uneasy, as if it sensed a change coming.

Rufus sat up so suddenly that even the cat was taken by surprise; it tumbled from his chest to his lap in a graceless tangle. Gathering itself together, it shook its head, then leapt away to the end of the bed and sat down with its back to both of them, lashing its tail.

Reno had seen people brought back from the brink of death plenty of times. Rufus's transformation was like that – only even more dramatic, because phoenix down took a while to work, and then you had to ply them with potions and Cure and they were a bit groggy for a while after. Rufus's return to life was almost instantaneous. Feverish colour flushed his cheeks. His eyes were bright, alert, glittering.

_He's in love with him_, Reno realised. He could see that it was the truth.

"My god," Rufus laughed – and though there was still a faint manic edge to his laughter, it sounded saner, healthier: the happy laugh of someone surprised by good news – "Of course. I've been so stupid!"

_ Yeah, you and me both, man. So the Boss wasn't bullshitting. Fucking hell._

Rufus said, "I have to talk to him," making it sound like the fate of the whole world was hanging in the balance. He swung his legs off the bed –

"Whoa!" Reno brought the gun up. "Just where do you think you're going?"

Rufus froze. For the first time, there was real fear in his eyes.

_Oh yeah, _thought Reno, _this changes everything. Don't feel so much like dying now, do you? _ His free hand moved towards his pocket, where Aviva's sleep materia lay. Rufus was well-muscled and he could move pretty fast, for an amateur, but he had nothing on Reno. If the V.P. tried to rush him, he was ready.

"Reno, please – " Oh, how that _'please'_ was music to Reno's ears - "I need to talk to him."

"I don't think he wants to talk to you. Sit down, V.P.. You're not going anywhere."

It would have been sweet to hear Rufus beg some more; kind of like a consolation prize. But Reno didn't expect it, and he wasn't disappointed, or fooled, when Rufus rolled away in apparent submission and resumed his previous posture: flat on his back, legs bent, knees crossed, one arm folded behind his head and the other hand cradling his shoulder, which was clearly hurting him. All his frustrated longing for action concentrated itself in his right foot, which twitched non-stop, like the cat's angry tail.

"Will you at least tell him I want to see him?" he asked at last.

_Yeah, right, like I'd let that happen, just when he's managed to break free. _"It seems to me he's made it pretty clear he doesn't want to see you. I gotta respect that decision. And don't think you can talk one of those other idiots into being your go-between. I'm not taking any chances. As soon as I'm done with you, I'm going to see him."

Rufus didn't bother to reply. Reno had to hand it to him: for someone who loved the sound of his own voice, the V.P. didn't waste words when he could see it wasn't going to get him anywhere. Of course they both knew that Reno couldn't keep Tseng and Rufus apart forever – in the ideal future that seemed increasingly unlikely to come to pass, Tseng, if he lived, would be Chief Turk to Rufus's President - but Reno wasn't thinking that kind of long-term. Long-term was relative, anyway. Right now, surviving to the end of next week would be an achievement. A lot could happen in a week. If Rufus was right about Tseng and Aerith -

The thoughts milling around in Reno's mind coalesced into a plan. Maybe he couldn't kill Rufus, but the V.P. had just handed him another weapon on a china plate, and this one wouldn't leave any visible scars.

"You know, though, V.P.," he began, unable to keep the grin off his face, "You're right on the money about Tseng and that Ancient chick. Looks like I gotta give you credit for knowing him better than I thought you did."

Rufus did not see him smile. His eyes were still fixed on the ceiling. His foot had stopped moving, though. Oh yeah: Reno had _all_ his attention now. "I used to wonder what Tseng saw in her," he went on. "She was kinda homely when she was a kid. Nothing but hair and eyes. But she's grown up into a real babe. Filled out very nicely. It's funny how that happens."

Rufus swallowed. A painful sound.

"Yeah, the Boss always said it was the one thing he regretted, not staking his claim on her when he had the chance. He told me once – this was years ago – that he was waiting for her to grow up. And I guess you know how patient he can be when he's got something worth waiting for. Then Zack made his move first and stole her right from under his nose. You can bet he wasn't too happy about that. For awhile there I thought he was gonna end up killing Fair. But anyway. The point is - now that he's been given another chance, d'you really think he's gonna risk losing her again by fucking around like he has been?"

Rufus glanced at Reno, and quickly looked away again.

That one anguished look was all Reno needed to know he'd hit his mark dead centre. "You gotta face facts, V.P.," he said, turning the screw another notch. "It's not like you're the first guy he's had a fling with. You know that, right? I mean, the Boss isn't exactly what you'd call _conventional._ But that woman owns his heart. She always has done. She means everything to him. You can't compete with that. So… yeah," he concluded, "That's the way the cookie crumbles. You win some, you lose some. You can't say I didn't warn you. If you get up close and personal with a guy like Tseng, you gotta expect some bruises."

"Yes," said Rufus hoarsely. "You were remarkably prescient, Reno."

_Whatever the fuck that means._

The little cat chose this moment to start winding itself between Reno's feet, rubbing its face against his shins and looking up at him as if it wanted to jump onto his lap. That would be a first. Reno felt the urge to kick it away, but felt instinctively that to do so would undermine the effect his words were having on Rufus. He nudged it with his toe. "Shoo, will you?"

Rufus clicked his tongue. At once the cat left Reno and ran to him, tail up. Leaping lightly onto the bed, it lay down next to him, one paw resting on his hand, and began purring its heart out, as if all its joy lay in obedience to its master's command. Reno was grudgingly impressed. He'd never been able to get that animal to do a single goddamn thing.

_Damn cat thinks it's a dog_, he thought. Aloud, he said, "Just stay away from him, V.P. and you won't get hurt. D'you hear what I'm saying?"

"I'm not deaf." Rufus sounded as if the words were being dragged from his throat by force.

"Good. I guess we understand each other now, huh?"

"It would seem so."

"Okay, then."

For the time being, Reno's work here was done. He stood up and stretched. Taking the sleep materia from his pocket, he cast it over Rufus before the younger man had time to react. It hit the cat too: their bodies slumped, and Rufus's eyes rolled to the back of his head, while the cat's remained half-open, pupils dilated almost to circles. "Sweet dreams, lover-boy," Reno muttered as he locked the room.

In the kitchen he gulped down a glass of water, then made himself a toasted cheese sandwich and carried it out into the sitting area, stretching out full length on the kitten sofa to eat it. The hole in the wall kept drawing his eye. _Expect the unexpected_, he thought. That should be their new motto.

He didn't really know what he felt. He'd punished Rufus, so he ought to be feeling like he'd accomplished something, but somehow it didn't give him as much satisfaction as he'd thought it would. Everything had fallen kind of flat. Though he was deeply relieved to know that Tseng had seen the light; yeah, he was definitely happy about that. A little bit of faith restored there. Better late than never.

He felt annoyed with himself for putting his foot in it. Him and his big mouth. After all this time, he should know better than to voice his thoughts aloud around Rufus. Still. It had got him the answer he needed. _Definitely_ not what he'd expected, and if it hadn't been for that look on Rufus's face, he would never have believed it, but that – the light of hope that had come into Rufus's eyes when he made his blunder – that, _that_ was the real thing. No denying it. Nobody could fake that look. To show it, you had to feel it, and once you'd felt it you knew it when you saw it. It was like a secret handshake or something. _Join the club, man_. _Welcome to a world of pain. _And if you were the kind of idiot sucker who allowed yourself to be taken in by a fraud… well, that was your own fault for wanting to be deceived.

She was somewhere in Midgar. If he looked for her, he'd find her.

For all he knew, at this very minute she was walking right over his head.

Those goddamn reactors. They never stopped. Boom. Boom. Boom. It was enough to drive a man insane. No wonder Rufus was going crazy; they were probably all going a little crazy. If they didn't get him out of here soon, he'd be good for nothing but the loony bin.

_God, _thought Reno, _I fucking hate this place._

He remembered there were a couple of beers in the fridge, and went to get one.

About twenty minutes later, when he'd finished both beers and was down to his last cigarette, Hunter showed up to relieve him. The moment she walked in her mouth started moving and it just wouldn't stop. "Ha, there you are. Two-Guns said you were here. My god, what happened to your eye? Don't tell me somebody landed a punch on you? What happened to the famous reflexes? Are you slowing down in your old age? Oh, and by the way - nice disappearing act you pulled this morning. Tseng was going ballistic. Why weren't you answering your phone?"

_Because I don't know where it is, duh. _"What's the big deal? I'm here, aren't I?" He was thinking, rather guiltily, that perhaps he ought to call the hotel in Wall Market and tell them to let Rude out.

"Yeah, well… at least you're OK. But haven't you heard? Nobody else has come back from that mission. Rude was in for a while but he went out again and we haven't been able to get in touch with him since. Mink and Veev have just vanished."

"But Veev was with me last night. She went to work this morning. I know she did. She left me a note."

"Well, she never came in. Roz says she called Tseng around nine o'clock this morning and told him she was on holiday in Junon."

"What? That's crazy. Where is she?"

"That's what I'm telling you. Nobody knows. We keep trying to call them, but both their phones are dead. Roz is sick with worry. She's afraid the army took her. But you know what I think? I think they've bailed on us, both of them."

_No,_ he thought, _not Veev._ Mink, maybe; he wouldn't be surprised if they'd seen the last of her. But not Aviva. Not his Veev. She was valiant and true.

"It's started," said Hunter morbidly. "The rats are leaving the sinking ship – "

"Shut up."

"I'm just saying – "

"If you got nothing worth saying then you should just keep your fucking trap shut."

"Well, I'm sorry. I know she's your little buddy. I'm just saying it doesn't look good."

Reno dug the sleep materia out of his pocket and shoved it into Hunter's surprised hands. "When the V.P. wakes up," he told her, "he's going to try to leave -"

"Why? What happened?"

"That's none of your business. And don't you let him start talking to you. Just do whatever it takes to keep him here, you got that? Knock him out. Shoot him in the foot if you have to. Both feet, even; I don't give a shit. Just don't kill him. I'm going to go find Veev. If you let Rufus get away, I'll fucking murder you, Hunter, I swear it."

"Hey, you don't need to threaten me to do my job properly, Reno – Reno!" she called after him. "I'm talking to you! Come back here -"

But he was already gone.

* * *

_The saying is, Hope deferred maketh the heart sick._

_This chapter is dedicated to Redcherryamber, because Reno is her main man. Thanks for all the great reviews and discussions and the wonderful fanfics, Cherry! _

_And thanks to all of you who continue to read, review, favourite, and enjoy this unwieldy 19__th__ century Russian novel of a fanfic. I can only apologise for the snail's pace at which I post. If only I didn't have to earn my living…_


	59. No Rest for the Wicked

**CHAPTER 59: NO REST FOR THE WICKED**

* * *

It was well past noon by the time Reno returned to the In'n'Out Motel in Wall Market. "Your friend's still sleeping," the desk clerk called to him as he passed by.

Reno halted. He'd just remembered something. "What about that suit I gave you?"

"Down at the dry cleaner's, sir, as you requested. It'll be ready by four."

Reno couldn't wait that long. Dashing next door, he asked the shopgirl to find him some clothes in Rude's size – "You got_ extra_ extra large?" – and took the first things she showed him, a flannel lumberjack's shirt and a pair of thin wool khaki trousers, using the gil from Rude's wallet to pay her. With his purchases tucked under his arm, he sped back to the hotel room. Warily, just in case Rude had somehow managed to get loose, he turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open with his foot, standing back to let it swing fully open. As he did so, a chambermaid passing behind him with her arms full of bed-linen happened to glance over his shoulder, and saw what Reno saw framed in the open doorway: a very large, very naked, very angry bald man, sunglasses askew, lying in the middle of the rug with his face on the floor and his butt in the air, arms handcuffed behind his back like a roast Sunday chicken under arrest.

The chambermaid giggled.

"It's not what it looks like," Reno protested.

"Of course, sir. That's what they all say."

Reno darted into the room and shut the door behind him. If Rude's eyes had been death rays, he would have been vaporized on the spot. "Calm down, man," he said. "I'm gonna take that gag off, but first you gotta listen to me. The V.P.'s in one piece, I swear it. I didn't lay a finger on him. We cleared the air and then I left him with Hunter. You can call her yourself if you don't believe me."

"Mmnmnph!"

"Just listen to me for a minute. Veev's gone missing. We need to find her. Mink too. Before I untie you, you have to promise me on the honour of the department that you won't punch my lights out. We gotta work together on this. Once we find them, you can do what you like to me. Is that a deal?"

Rude hesitated, then nodded.

"I'm gonna take the gag off now. Don't shout at me, okay?"

His nimble fingers made short work of the knot in Rude's tie. Rude spat it out of his mouth, spat again, coughed, rasped, "Fuck _you_, man. Hurry up. I need to piss."

"I said I'm sorry."

"No you didn't."

"Look, I'm getting you out as fast as I can. Just lie still, you're not helping."

The moment Rude's handcuffs were off he made a run for the bathroom. Reno stood back to let him pass. While his partner was pissing, he laid the new clothes out out on the rumpled bed. "Look what I bought you," he announced when Rude came back.

He saw the fist coming and didn't try to dodge it. Rude's punch sent him flying backwards onto the other bed, cracking his skull against the wall. _Coulda been worse_, he told himself as he lay there waiting for the stars to fade from his eyes. He had a second shiner now to match the first, but no bones had been broken, not even his nose, and, as Rude had promised, he hadn't been knocked unconscious.

_My partner: a man of his word._

"We quits now?" he asked, sitting up and rubbing the bump on the back of his head.

Rude gave his knuckles a satisfying crack. "You got some talking to do. Otherwise, you'd be picking your teeth off the floor. Where's my suit?"

"At the cleaners. I didn't want to mention anything, partner, but it kinda smelt."

"You think you're so smart," Rude growled.

"No," said Reno. "I really don't."

Since he had no alternative, Rude began to dress in the clothes Reno had brought him. "What about Mink and Veev?" he said.

"Hunter said they've been missing all day. Their phones are dead; I tried 'em. Mink, I'm not so surprised about. The way she walked off yesterday, I got a feeling she wasn't planning on coming back. But Veev went to work this morning. She left me a note saying so. Something must have happened on the way. After I left the V.P. I went over to that place she's been staying in Sector 5, to see if I could pick up any leads, but they told me they haven't seen her for a couple of days. And all her stuff is still there. Corneo's man on the gate says he saw her this morning heading for the station, but I couldn't find anyone at the station who saw her get on a train. So I thought maybe, if we went back to the places we were at last night, somebody might know something, or have seen her."

"Bit of a long shot," Rude rumbled.

"You got any better ideas?"

Rude's new khaki trousers were clinging very tightly to his thighs. The collar of the lumberjack shirt didn't quite close around his neck, and the sleeves were a little too short for his arms. He looked uncomfortable. "Give me my phone," he said.

Reno handed it over. Rude dialed Tseng's number, and was routed through to Rosalind on the duty desk. Reno inched closer, until he could hear her voice saying, "… out to see Corneo. I'm taking his calls. Where have you _been_?"

Rude hesitated. "Got tied up in the slums."

"Not literally, I hope."

Rude gave Reno a quelling look. Reno did not dare smile. "Got anything for us?" Rude asked Rosalind.

"No, it's gone pretty quiet. I'd almost say too quiet, but after yesterday – Wait a minute. Did you say 'us'? Is Reno with you?"

Reno leaned his mouth closer to the phone. "Hey, Roz. How's tricks?"

There was a brief, loaded silence. "Well," she replied at last, with a briskness that couldn't disguise her relief, "You've certainly been giving us the runaround. I expected to see you come in after Hunter took over from you. Did she tell you about Mink and Aviva?"

"Yeah. Me and Rude are gonna go see what we can find."

"All right. Good luck. I hope everything's okay. Just make sure to keep your phones turned on. And guys – be careful, okay? We don't want to lose anyone else."

.

For the next two hours Rude and Reno scoured Wall Market in search of Aviva and Mink, but everywhere they went, they drew a blank. At the Honeybee Inn, where repairs to the revue bar were already underway, they found some girls idling the afternoon away, enjoying the post-lunchtime lull in trade and more than willing to shoot the breeze for a while with anybody who'd buy them a drink. They teased Rude about his dress sense, and offered Reno home remedies for his two black eyes; in their line of work they knew all about bruises. Each girl had her own story to tell about the previous night's drama, and they all remembered Aviva, but none of them could shed any light on where she might have gone.

Rude settled the bill, and he and Reno went round to the Hungry Hungry curry house. "You've lost the small one?" said Ho-Chu. "She left something here. I thought she would come back for it." From under the counter he produced a powder-blue plush moogle, which he put into Reno's hands. "Yeah, I remember this," said Reno, "I got it from the claw machine, after we left the pool hall…."

They went to the pool hall, and then the bar, and then the pizzeria and finally the pachinko parlour, but it was always the same story: nobody had seen her since she'd passed by that way with Reno. Rude, who had predicted from the start that this retracing of steps would prove a waste of time but who had, nevertheless, patiently allowed Reno to have his own way, now suggested that they return to the station and make more inquiries. As they walked, he asked Reno to tell him what had happened with Rufus. Reno gave him the full story, from the gunshot hole in the bunker wall to the sleep spell he'd cast on the Vice-President, keeping nothing back. Rude listened thoughtfully, and said very little.

They had no better luck at the train station. While Reno was questioning the boy who ran the newsagents' stall, a train pulled in; they thought they might as well catch it as not. So they rode up to the Sector One station, and asked around there, but nobody remembered seeing anyone matching Aviva's description, not even the girl in the coffee shop who always kept an eye out for them.

"She's disappeared herself," said Rude at last.

"You don't know that for sure. If the army the took her – "

"The army didn't take her, Reno. We'd know by now."

"They could be keeping us in suspense. Psychological warfare. Picking us off one by one -"

"You told me yourself she lied on the phone to Tseng. That was this morning. It's nearly six. She'll be miles from Midgar by now."

Reno would have liked to raise more objections, but couldn't think of any. Rude was right: the phone call to Tseng was the clincher, proof positive that Aviva had vanished of her own free will.

"I just don't like it when I don't know where she is," he said. "I feel kinda responsible for the little runt. Especially now the Legend's gone and she can't run to him any more."

"You should worry more about what Tseng'll do when he gets his hands on her."

"You think she's planning on coming back?"

"She's a Turk," said Rude. "Not so sure about Mink. I never felt she was one hundred per cent. You know?"

Reno would rather not think about Mink if he could help it. As it was, his mind couldn't stop replaying the same thirty-second video clip of her turning her back on them and walking away with her _fuck-you-all_ fist raised in the air. She'd said she would deal with Strife, but he was willing to bet she hadn't. He shouldn't have let her go after Strife on her own. If he hadn't been so angry, it would never have happened. In fact, for all he knew, since he could remember bugger-all about last night, it might have been something he'd said or done that had driven Veev away too. Had he somehow given her the impression that he blamed _her_ for the brawl in the revue bar? The little half-pint was way too tolerant of his bullshit sometimes. Why hadn't she called him on it, instead of running away?

"I've got to go," said Rude, checking the time on his PHS. "I'm gonna be late to relieve Hunter. Where're you headed?"

"The office, I guess." All roads led there in the end. Rude was probably right: Veev would find her way back home eventually. And it was about time Roz got a break from the duty desk.

"What about Tseng?" said Rude.

"Dunno." It was the truth. Reno wasn't sure what to do next, but he knew he wasn't ready to see Tseng yet. The kind of conversation they needed to have wasn't one he relished tackling stone cold sober. He hoped Tseng was still out of the office; in fact he devoutly hoped that the V.P.'s jealous imaginings were true and that their Boss was down in Sector 5 right now canoodling with his beloved Ancient, because she was definitely the lesser of two evils.

But after seeing that look on Rufus's face, Reno knew it wasn't going to be so simple. When Rufus Shinra set his heart on something, he didn't just _let go_.

He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. "It's kinda complicated," he said.

"You reckon?" Rude replied with a gravelly sarcasm that was about as close he ever got to saying _I told you so._ "You through with the one-man vendetta now? This affects all of us, not just you. We should handle it together. You and me. We'll talk to Tseng together."

"You don't think we should tell the others? I mean, before Rufus drops the bomb on them?"

"That's for the Tseng to decide. He's the boss. Whatever happens, we back him up. United front. Agreed?"

Reno dug his hands deeper into his pockets. What a bloody mess… As if the shit in their creek wasn't deep enough already. He had no idea what the answer was. Maybe there wasn't one. All he knew was that he didn't want to be at odds with his partner any longer.

"Agreed," he nodded.

It was getting late. The setting sun lit up the mako clouds in shades of apocalyptic red. Rude set off to make his devious way to the bunker; Reno turned for home, slouching along through the crowded streets with his hands in his pockets and Veev's pistol warm against the small of his back. When he walked into the Shinra Building, he was faintly surprised to find that it looked the same as ever. He'd expected it to be different, somehow. The night receptionist gave him her usual charming smile; the janitor touched his cap respectfully. There was something surreal about this appearance of normality. He'd only been away for just over a day, but so much had happened in the last twenty-four hours he felt as if he'd been gone for years.

He got into the lift and rode up to the Turk floor. As the lift doors opened he inhaled the homely, familiar smell of the department, a mingling of stale cigarette smoke, burnt coffee, mako, curry take-away, unwashed gym socks, gun oil, and - citrus? Rounding the corner, he saw Rosalind at the duty desk peeling a tangerine. "Hey," he said, "I'm back."

"Your eyes!" she said with her mouth full. "You look like a grangalan. What happened?"

"I tangled with an immovable object. Don't ask." He set the toy moogle down beside the phone. "That's Veev's," he told her.

Rosalind stroked the soft blue plush with the back of her hand. "Any sign of them?" she asked. Reno shook his head. She sighed and shut her eyes. God, she looked tired. When had she last had a proper night's sleep? Good old Roz, always holding the fort for the rest of them. If he'd come in when he was supposed to, she could have knocked off for a couple of hours and put her head down. It was just one more thing to feel guilty about.

"The Boss around?" he asked.

"Still out, I don't know where. Did he say anything to you when he called?"

Reno almost said, _what call?_ but just in time he remembered the lie he'd told earlier to Cavour. "No, nothing. Where's everyone else?"

"Knox is kipping in the lounge. Skeeter went out to get something to eat. Hunter – you know where she is. And Cavs and Tys are off duty. I think they went for a drink in Wall Market.

Reno envied them. In the bottom drawer of the duty desk lay a bottle of vodka with his name on it, literally, but to get at it he'd have to go reaching right under Roz's disapproving nose, and the last thing he wanted to do right now was bait her. He went to the kitchen, took a cold beer from the fridge, popped the tab, and drank deeply.

"You want a coffee?" he called to her.

"I've had eight cups already today. Any more and I'll be jumping right out of my skin."

Knox's sleep-roughened voice came from the TV lounge: "I'll have one, if you're making it."

Reno poured him a mugful, added cream and two sugars, stirred it, and carried it down to the lounge, where Knox was sitting up, yawning. His glasses lay on the floor under the sofa. Watching where he put his feet, Reno bent to set Knox's coffee on the table, and was just straightening up again when through the window he caught sight of something that didn't look right. A plume of smoke, pale against the deepening darkness of the mako smog, was rising in the distance, beyond the rim of the plate.

"Knox," he said, "Something's on fire."

Knox twisted round to look through the window. "Shit. That's the Sector One extension. I hope it isn't the materia factory – "

Down the corridor, the phone on the duty desk began to ring.

* * *

_Author's note: to all my cherished readers, I am deeply sorry for the slow, slow rate at which I post. I've been on holiday recently and managed to get a number of chapters under my belt, so hopefully I'll be able to start posting just a little faster. To make up for the delay, and because such a little chapter isn't really enough of a reward for your patience, I'm posting two today. _

_Since this brief chapter isn't substantial enough to be worthy of dedication to any of my wonderful reviewers, I'm dedicating it to my mum instead. Not that she'll ever read it. But she's an amazing mum and I love her to bits. I'm very lucky to have her._


	60. A Breakdown In Negotiations

**CHAPTER 60: A BREAKDOWN IN NEGOTIATIONS**

* * *

Tseng dreamt that after her wedding to Rufus, Aerith gave birth to a pearl. Rufus wrapped it in a blanket and gave it to him to hold. "This isn't right," he said. The two of them stood arm in arm laughing at him. Rufus told him he worried too much, and then Aerith put her fingers on his eyelids and pulled them down as if he were a dead man.

Even after he awoke the evil of this dream clung to him, like cobwebs.

The pounding of his heart woke him. In his dream, danger was knocking on the door. His eyes flew open, and were instantly stabbed by a blinding light. Quickly he shut them again, wondering if he was still dreaming. He was lying on something hard, wooden, with a coarse pillow of some sort under his cheek, its contents rustling in his ear. The air smelt of flowers. Somewhere close by a woman was singing, her voice unselfconsciously out of tune, her song less a melody than a sequence of random notes with no real words, _la-la-la_, like birdsong, or like the kind of nonsense syllables a mother might use to lull her children to sleep.

Tseng smiled. Though Aerith could make flowers bloom where no flowers ought to grow, could dispel pain with her fingertips, and probably possessed an arsenal of other powers he did not even begin to understand, she had never been able to carry a tune.

He sat up, raising his head out of the beam of sunlight that had dazzled his eyes. She was crouching over the flowerbed, her dress pulled tight across her haunches; he could hear the nip of her scissors clipping through the stems. Dusty rays of evening light, slanting through the window at an acute angle, lent her hair a coppery sheen. The sun must be setting. He took out his PHS to check the time. Just after six. He had no messages. Good. Probably.

"You're awake," she said without turning round.

"Aerith." His voice sounded hoarse, dry. "How long have you been here?"

"Oh, maybe an hour."

"You should have woken me."

"You looked so peaceful, I didn't want to disturb you." She continued to work as she spoke, not hurrying. From a reel of blue satin ribbon she cut three lengths and used them to tie bows around three buttonhole posies. Scissors, ribbon and flowers were carefully placed in the basket. Job done, she stood up and turned round, brushing the dirt from her hands as she walked towards him. "I find vagrants asleep in here all the time," she said. "I think it makes them feel safe. I just leave them be. After all, a church is supposed to be a place where everybody's welcome."

The subtext was plain, though her tone was a friendly shade of neutral. The smile on her face, with its hint of mischief, was the one he remembered; her eyes, on the other hand, were wary and cold, a stranger's eyes. Smiles could be faked. Tseng preferred to trust the eyes. He wouldn't make the mistake of assuming that because he'd known this woman when she was a small child, and again when she was a young girl, he knew her now.

She slipped into the pew in front of his own and sat down, turning from the waist in order to face him. Her cotton-candy dress twisted around her, moulding to the contours of her flank and hips. Its two top buttons, mother-of-pearl, strained against the fullness of her breasts. He recalled she'd been wearing this same dress the last time they'd seen each other, that night when –

"What?" she asked, sounding puzzled. He looked up at her, but she was looking at a spot on her own right arm, the same spot he'd been staring at a moment before in – he suddenly realised - exactly the same way he looked at Rufus's face, always seeing the hairline scar on his upper lip, and the other scar, triangular, almost invisible, at the corner of his eyebrow. Aerith's superficial bruises had faded months ago. Nevertheless, Tseng saw them, and she saw that he did.

The smile she'd been working to keep up fell from her face.

He liked her better that way, anyway. He didn't want her to pretend that she was glad to see him. Freedom from pretence, the freedom to be wholly herself, had always been the one thing he could give her.

"Runaways doss down here too, sometimes," she said. "But you're a little old to be running away from home. Have you been in a fight, Tseng?"

She lifted her hand as she said this, pointing at the cut on his brow. He knew she wasn't intending to touch him, but his head instinctively jerked away. Aerith raised an eyebrow , and let her hand fell back to her lap.

"What's in there?" she asked, turning her attention to the holdall that had pillow his head while he slept.

He laid his hand on the bag, feeling a unexpected surge of protectiveness. Over the years he'd come to think of her letters as, in some way, _his_; his sacred trust, his bond with her, his penance. By returning them to her, would that trust finally be discharged? Forgiveness, closure, mission accomplished. Would she think that was what he had come for? _Go thou, and sin no more_.

He doubted her powers extended that far.

"I wasn't able to give Zack your letters," he said. "I thought I should return them to you."

Once upon a time her face had been a open book to him, but the years had taught her to hide her feelings. All he could say for sure was that she didn't look surprised.

She said, "I guess that explains why he never replied."

_Until you found a better postman_.

In his imagination Tseng saw her tying the eighty-ninth letter to the white monster's leg, winding the blue ribbon round and round as if the great winged beast were her personal carrier pigeon, and then stroking its feathers and taking Angeal's sleeping face between her hands to whisper, 'Find him'. Of course he'd never know if that was how it had really happened. To earn the truth, he'd first have to tell her the truth. _Zack got your last letter. He read it. In fact, it was the reason he died. He was coming back to Midgar, back to you. He thought nothing could stand in the way of true love. But you know, and I know, that he was wrong._

"Aerith," he began, "Yesterday – "

She laughed just a little too quickly, "That was some storm, wasn't it? You'll never believe what happened. The wind was so strong it blew the rain right in under the plate. It came down through the hole in the roof and the raindrops landed on my face. Real raindrops! For the first time in my life!"

The jeweled light pouring through the stained glass windows was fast losing its brilliance; the slums' moment of glory was almost gone. Tseng said, "Did you see the news last night?"

"I didn't see it, but mom told me the army took down a monster in the badlands."

"Yes."

"They said the casualties were terrible."

"They were."

"Those poor men. I feel so sorry for their families."

"Aerith – Zack was one of them."

"_Zack_ was?" Startled out of her sweet-girl act, she sounded genuinely surprised.

"Yes. He was killed. I'm sorry."

She gave him one of her inimitable withering looks, head tilted, lips drawn together in the _what-kind-of-fool-do-you-take-me-for _expression she'd perfected by the time she was five years old. "Again?" she said drily.

Oh, touché.

Yet her reaction caught Tseng off guard. It hadn't occurred to him that she might need some convincing. He had assumed she would already know. He said, "You must have – sensed something…" and then tailed off, wondering if 'sensed' was the right word. He had only a rudimentary, hypothetical understanding of how Aerith did the things she denied she could do, and her face was giving nothing away.

He tried again. "When I told you that Zack had been killed at Nibelheim, you knew I was lying. You knew he wasn't dead. How could you have known that?"

"I saw it in your eyes."

_Because you're such a bad liar._

"That may be true," he conceded, "but I believe that's not all there is to it. I know that you are in communication with – " What could he call them? "With other consciousnesses, and that they speak to you. Don't they?"

"Oh, all the time. They tell me that men in white coats come for crazy people who hear voices."

Of course she would say that. He should have known it would go like this. All her life, from the time she'd grown old enough to understand the implications of her gift (her curse) she had refused to admit, even to Elmyra, that the voices existed - and Tseng was more than partly to blame, because he had indulged her in this pretence. It had been part of their unspoken agreement. She made the rules and he, ever-patient, had followed her lead, referring to Elmyra as her mother, talking as if her relationship with Zack was going somewhere, acting as if young girls growing flowers inside abandoned churches was the kind of normal thing you could find in any sector of Midgar. He'd been patient with her because he had assumed she knew, as well as he did, that they were playing a game of make-believe; that she would have to grow up one day. He'd thought that was understood.

He said, "If you can distinguish when I'm telling the truth and when I'm lying, then you know I'm telling you the truth now. I haven't come here to trap you. I'm not here as a representative of the company, not… I mean, I came because I wanted to, not just as a Turk, but because we are friends. I can't let you go on waiting any longer for someone who is never going to come back. Zack's dead, Aerith. You know it's the truth."

Her face lost some of its wariness as he spoke. He sensed a relenting in her attitude towards him. Maybe it was his sincerity that did the trick. Maybe she was simply tired of pretending. Or maybe the voices whispered a warning to her, telling her to throw the dog a bone. Whatever the reason, she shook her head and said, "Tseng. Dear Tseng. You try so hard, but you have no idea, do you?"

"About what?' For she could mean many different things.

"I think you're the one with the wild imagination. My voices – as you call them – they're not _mine_. And they don't talk _to_ me." She put her head on one side and looked at him, waiting for him to respond. He had a feeling she was giving him this one chance: if he put his foot in it, asked the wrong question, presumed too much, she would clam up again.

"Can you tell me what you do hear?" he asked at last.

"I just hear them. They're just _there_. You could say I'm like an eavesdropper."

"Are there many of them?"

"I can't tell. More than just a few, anyway."

"Are they talking to each other?"

"Not really. It's more as if they're all talking at the same time, talking _over_ each other. It's like – like pressing my ear to a room full of grumpy old people grumbling away to themselves. Most of the time I can't even make out what they're saying."

"So they're not in your head?"

She frowned at him. "If they were in my head then I really would be crazy."

"Then where are they? In the - Lifestream?"

Spoken aloud, the fairy-tale word sounded idiotic. He was afraid she might think he was mocking her. But Aerith answered him with perfect seriousness: "I'm not sure. There's not supposed to be any individual consciousness in the Lifestream. Although to tell you the truth, some of them are barely there anyway, if you know what I mean."

He wanted to ask if Ifalna was there, and if she ever spoke of him. But he was afraid of the answer. He wanted to take hold of Aerith by both wrists and say, _Rufus thinks the mako is the Lifestream. Is he right? Is that true? _

But again, he didn't know which would be worse, a yes, or a no.

"And then there's the pain," she added.

"They hurt you?" he asked incredulously, at once imagining this pain she spoke of as something psychic, a spiritual wounding.

"No. It's not _my_ pain. I don't know where it comes from. I don't think it's their pain either, but it bothers them. Sometimes it gets so it's all they can talk about. It's hard to have to listen to so much pain, especially when there's nothing I can do about it. I get to the point sometimes where I wish they'd just shut up and go away. But yesterday…."

"Something changed?"

"The storm upset them. They got really loud. As soon as the rain stopped, I went home, and then Mom sent me into the garden to cut some mint. They were all talking in unison, so it was easier to hear them. They kept saying the same thing: 'He's coming'."

" 'He's coming'?" Tseng echoed.

"Yes. They sounded – excited. Or scared. Flustered – oh, I don't know!"

"Who's coming?"

"I don't _know_. They never explain themselves clearly. Of course my first thought was Zack. He's been on my mind a lot since An - my creature, disappeared. What happened to it, Tseng? Do you know? Did it find him?"

"It died."

She closed her eyes. Whatever she was thinking, he couldn't see it. He gave her a moment, and then asked again, _"Who_ is coming, Aerith?"

"Well, like I said, I thought they meant Zack – "

"But Zack is dead."

She give him another withering look. _Are you going to keep repeating yourself, or will you let me explain? _

He yielded. "Go on."

"Well, then, when I came in here this afternoon and saw _you…._"

She did not finish the thought, but he knew what she meant. The voices had been warning her to take care. "Yet you hung around waiting for me to wake up," he said. "Was that wise?"

Aerith laughed. He wasn't sure if she was laughing at him or at the suggestion she might be in some danger. "I knew you weren't here on business the moment I saw you," she told him. "Seriously – what kind of self-respecting Turk falls asleep on the job?"

How wrong she was. But he did not wish to pre-empt himself, so he said nothing, and she went on, "Of course I was dying to find out what could be important enough to bring you down here to see me after all this time." Her gaze lingered on the bag of letters as she said this. In a more somber tone, she added, "And now I do."

"Zack isn't coming back, Aerith. He's dead. You must believe me."

"If only it were that easy. I wish I could believe what you believe, Tseng. Everything would be so much simpler then."

He wondered what she thought he believed in. His inner church was pretty sparsely furnished these days. What was left? Rufus, of course, insofar as Rufus could be considered objectively: the potential contained in him; the possibility of change. What else? His department, his people; his duty, the obligation to hold the line in the ongoing struggle against entropy and chaos. The principle that the welfare of the many took precedence over the needs of the individual – that remained an article of faith with him. But above all, first and last, he believed in this woman sitting here in front of him, in the sheer importance of what she represented binding them all together: himself, herself, Rufus, his Turks, their future.

One of his phones began to vibrate. It was his PHS, the call of duty, not his black market phone. He was tempted to ignore it, but the caller could only be Rosalind, and she wouldn't be disturbing him without a good reason. He pulled the phone out, flipped it open to confirm the identifier, and put it to his ear, while Aerith listened with unconcealed curiosity. "Roz," he said, "What is it?"

" We've just had a call from the President's office. There's been an explosion at the Sector One materia factory –"

_Oh, god, _he thought, _ that's all we need._

_ " _It happened about twenty minutes ago. Initial reports put the casualties in double figures. Apparently Avalanche are claiming responsibility."

Aerith saw his expression change. _What's wrong_? she mouthed. He gestured for her to be quiet. To Rosalind he said, "The real ones? Or one of these copycat groups?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, sir."

"There's no chance it could have been an accident?"

"People see terrorism everywhere these days," Rosalind answered diplomatically. "Though it's true that bombing our biggest materia factory is more their style than blowing up a little accounts office in the slums. The President's taking it very seriously. He wants us to send someone down."

"Who's there, besides you?"

"Just Knox and Reno. Skeeter went out, but he'll be back soon."

So Reno had turned up at last, had he? That was one less thing to worry about. "You and Knox will have to go," he decided. "Tell Reno to take over from you at the desk. I want him where I know I can find him. And Roz – is there any word from Veev or Mink?"

"No, sir. I'm sorry."

"Tell Reno to let me know the moment either one of them makes contact or comes in. And make sure you and Knox watch your own backs. Call me as soon as you get there."

"All right, sir, will do."

He closed the phone and put it away. Aerith, who had been waiting impatiently to speak, said, "I hope nobody's hurt."

"A routine operation," he replied automatically.

She looked relieved. "So you don't you have to go?"

"Soon. Not right away."

"Well, then." She rose to her feet, full of purpose, as if she'd come to a decision while he was talking to his subordinate. "We'd better not waste any more time. You can give me those," she said, pointing to the hold-all full of her letters.

Tseng stood up and handed the bag to her. "They're heavier than I thought they would be," she observed, slinging the strap over her left shoulder. The wings of her bangs had fallen into her eyes. She shook them out and said, "I'm going to burn these. Right now, before I change my mind."

_No,_ his soul cried,_ you can't - you entrusted them to me, and now I'm entrusting them to you, and you must take the same care of them that I did, so that when you are an old woman they will still be with you, even if I am not, and you will be able to take them out and read them over and over again, as many times as you like, to make sure that you never forget him, or me, and how I kept them safe for you._

But she was no more likely to grow old than he was.

In the rapidly gathering dusk he could no longer see her features clearly. Behind her the flowers had begun to emit a hazy light, greeny-gold, the colour of their night scent.

"Burn them?" he said. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," she said firmly, grabbing hold of his wrist. "Come on."

The sensation of her fingers on his skin – her abrupt intrusion into his personal space – caught him unprepared. Between them there had always been an unspoken no-touching rule, which, right from the start, from the very first day he'd rediscovered her here in this church, when she was twelve and he twenty, he had been scrupulous about obeying. For Aerith it was different. In her teens she had often tested the rule's boundaries – and his – by pretending not to be aware of its existence. She used to take all sorts of liberties, patting his knee, playing with the ends of his hair, putting a hand in his jacket pocket and helping herself to his handkerchief or his pocket knife – but these were minor trespasses, and innocent enough.

The one time he had broken the rule, he'd left the dark marks of his fingers on the skin of her arm.

After everything that had happened, and with the distance that had grown between them, he was shocked that she would still want to touch him – shocked out of all proportion to the gesture, which was childlike and hardly intimate. Her hand, calloused from garden work and weapon training, felt warm around his wrist, and unexpectedly strong. With her other hand she reached for her staff, which she'd left leaning against a nearby pillar. Its slot held a sphere of materia, though what the elemental was he could not, in this half-light, determine. Earth was the most obvious affinity – or maybe water? Or all the elements, most likely. She could probably teach him a thing or two.

They went out through the vestry door into a small cobbled cloister, overlooked on three sides by tenement windows. A one-armed plaster saint, its remaining hand steepled in prayer, stood on a concrete plinth in the farthest corner of the yard, its painted eyes turned forever upwards, eternally contemplating the underbelly of the plate. Between the plinth and the wall was a space where Aerith kept her tools: spade, fork, wheelbarrow, watering can, and, covered with an old flannel bedsheet, the flower wagon Zack had made for her.

She released Tseng's hand and dropped the bag of letters to the ground. Leaning her staff against the saint's plinth, she pulled the bedsheet off the wagon, rolled it into a ball and tucked it between the statue's feet. The wagon's ice-cream colours had faded and its wheels were rusty: they squealed as she pushed it into the middle of the yard. "I haven't used this thing for years," she said, as if she owed him some kind of explanation. "My business is all up top these days, and they won't let me take it on the train."

With one fluid motion she swung the bag up into her arms and unzipped it. Tseng took a step forward, but a glance from her was enough to stop him. Pulling open the mouth of the bag as wide as it would go, she raised it high over her head (her pose, thought Tseng approvingly, was like that of an ancient priestess conducting a ritual sacrifice), and after a moment's hesitation (reverent hesitation) flipped it upside-down and dumped its entire contents into the wagon.

As the letters tumbled through the air, their coloured envelopes made him think, inevitably perhaps, of petals, torn loose by a storm. Lilac – sage green - peach blossom - primrose yellow… Springtime hues, in those parts of the world where the wheel of the seasons still turned. When she'd turned twenty she had gone through a brief phase of favouring darker colours, cherry reds and plum purples. There were even a handful of envelopes in shocking orange neon.

One of the letters flew wide of the mark, coasting through the air to land at Tseng's feet. He stooped and picked it up. Even before he turned it over, his thumb had recognized the raised velvety texture of the floral sticker she had used to seal the envelope. Stickers were not something he had been in the habit of noticing, but after she'd given him the first letter he began seeing them everywhere: every schoolgirl's bookbag seemed to be covered with the things, on sale for a gil a sheet in any convenience store. This particular cheap sticker had dried out and fallen off by the time he'd brought it back to the office; he'd had to glue it back on with shinradhere before locking the letter away in his drawer. He had not foreseen, then, that eighty-seven more would be joining it.

The season of the schoolgirl stickers had given way, in due time, to more sophisticated accessories. Scented paper, purple ink, sealing wax…. An entire history of experiments in self-expression lay in that flower wagon, waiting for the touch of a lighted match. It occurred to Tseng, as he ran his thumb over the sticker's nap, that perhaps the writing of those letters - the careful selection of paper and ink, the act of composition, the ceremony of sealing up her words – had been an end in itself for her, a way of giving substance to the woman she longed to be. Other girls kept diaries; Aerith had written letters to her dead boyfriend, spinning out a bittersweet romance far more in keeping with the typical dreams of teenage girls than the life of freakish utility to which Shinra, and her own genes, had condemned her. From start to finish Zack had been her great act of rebellion against her fate, her declaration of normality.

And now it was finally over.

"Tseng." She was holding out her hand for the last letter.

"Don't you want to think about this?" he asked her.

She shook her head so fiercely that her bangs swept back and forth across her face. "No! No over-thinking. I've made a resolution to stop letting myself get so attached to material things. The wheels on this wagon have never worked properly. It's stupid to hang on to it. And besides…"

"What?"

"Well, even if I _was_ the kind of girl who liked to keep old love letters tied with a red ribbon at the back of my underwear drawer, you and I both know that Shinra could send someone any time they liked to go through my things, and there's no guarantee it would be you. These letters were for Zack. I can't stand the thought of somebody like Hojo or President Shinra getting their hands on them. This way, at least I can be sure nobody else will ever read them."

From the pocket of her jacket she took a Shinra Imp matchbox, struck one, and held it to the corner of the envelope. The dry paper instantly caught fire. She tossed the burning envelope onto the pile of letters. They smouldered, crackled, and burst into flame.

Soon the fire was burning hotly enough to force them both backwards. Red lights and black shadows danced across Aerith's face. Her eyes were glassy, like mirrors reflecting the flames, but glistening, wet. If he were to point this out to her, she'd probably tell him the smoke was making her eyes water. She had an air of being folded in on herself, hugging her shoulders as if she were cold, despite the heat from the flames.

Such a longing she had once roused in him to hold something soft in his arms. Tseng thought of those days now as an age of innocence, when no problem was so intractable, no coil so tangled, that it could not be solved by a pair of bullets. Taking a handkerchief from his pocket, he passed it to her. "Thanks," she sniffed, wiping her eyes.

His hand hovered in the air, not actually touching her arm, but close enough to feel the warmth emanating from her skin. "Aerith – I'm sorry."

_For everything,_ was what he meant. The things he had done, the things he had failed to do, and the thing he was about to do. He had a favour to beg, or an ultimatum to lay down; she could take it whichever way she preferred, because it came to the same thing in the end.

Consciously or unconsciously, she started to rub her arm. Seeing this, Tseng realised she had misunderstood his apology. She was thinking about the last time they met. No sooner had he realised this than she took a deep breath and, with her eyes fixed on the flames, told him, "You had no right to say those things."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"But you meant them."

"No – "

"Oh, _Tseng_. Of course you did. That's what made it so ugly. I knew you never liked me being in a relationship with Zack, but I never dreamt you could be so – so - mean-spirited."

"Forgive me. I was angry."

"_You_ were angry?" she exclaimed, turning to confront him. "What did you have to be angry about?_ I_ was angry! You dropped out of my life, abandoning me for months on end, and then suddenly out of the blue you bump into me and expect me to go for a drink with you like nothing's happened?"

_That night, _ he thought,_ if you'd come for a drink with me… But what must be, will be. You take a left turning instead of a right, and it seems like an accident, until you find your fate waiting for you around the next corner. _

He said, "I needed to talk to you."

"What about all the times I needed to talk to _you_? After Zack left me, you were the only person I could talk to. I couldn't let Mom see how I was feeling. She never liked him to start with. You were his friend. I thought you'd understand. I _needed_ you, Tseng, but you stopped coming to see me. It was as if the more I needed you, the more you stayed away. Why? Was it the letters?"

"I was busy. When Veld went – "

"Is that the best you can do?" she demanded, voice wavering somewhere between laughter and tears. "You've always been busy. It never used to keep you away. Be honest. It was me, wasn't it? I drove you away. I knew how much you hated those letters, but I hoped so badly that maybe, just maybe, if I kept pressurizing you, you'd crack and tell me the real reason why Zack left me. At first I thought Professor Hojo or the President must have found out about us and warned him to keep away from me. I was convinced they'd ordered you to tell me he was dead. You hated having to lie to me; I could see it in your eyes. Was that why you stopped coming to see me? Because every time I saw you, I made you lie?"

He could see she wouldn't go on unless he gave her an answer. "In part," he admitted.

"I knew it. You see, the voices didn't tell me he was alive, Tseng. _You_ did that. When you took my first letter, that's when I knew for certain he wasn't dead. If he'd really been dead you'd never have taken that letter. You'd have told me to tear it up and given me a strict lecture on the need to accept my loss and move on with my life. See how well I know you? Every time I forced one of those letters on you, you looked so _guilty_, and that was what made me start to wonder who you were _really_ trying to protect - Zack, or the company, or me? And the more I thought about it, the more things didn't add up. Zack didn't just disappear from _my _life. He disappeared altogether. Some of the things he said, just before he went away… When I was thinking them over afterwards, I realised he probably knew all along that he wouldn't be coming back. And then there was the fact that his friend Sephiroth disappeared at the same time, in the same place, with the same story. And I put all those things together and I started thinking, 'This goes further than me. Shinra wants everyone to think they're _both_ dead.'"

Aerith paused, leaned forward, put her hand on Tseng's arm, looked deep into his eyes and said, "Tell me the truth. They're on a secret mission somewhere, aren't they?"

He could almost have laughed, if his heart weren't so heavy.

"You're partly right," he admitted, glad of the shifting firelight that camouflaged his expression. "Sephiroth _was_ killed at Nibelheim. Zack was wounded. He… It took him a long time to recover. He's been on a posting since then. Overseas."

"Oh, pfft," Aerith snorted, sounding, for a moment, unnervingly like Reno. "I'm a big girl now. I can handle the truth. He got tired of me, didn't he? I knew he would. He had his pick of women, and I was just too much trouble. That mission overseas gave him the perfect opportunity to end it. I think he decided to just go away and never come back, a nice, clean, break with no messy tears or confrontations. Zack hated making people unhappy. You knew that was what he was up to, and that's why you never gave him my letters. Because you knew he wouldn't want them."

"If that were true, why would I choose now to bring his letters back? Why would I bring them back at all?"

"Well, I don't know, do I? It's not like I know everything that goes on in _your_ life. I guess something must have happened that made you feel it was time. Or maybe you were just cleaning out your desk. _I _don't know."

"Why would I tell you Zack is dead, if he isn't?"

"Because you look out for me," she immediately replied. "Ever since we were kids you've been looking out for me, and I know something about you that not a lot of people know. Deep down inside that suit, you're really a kind man. You don't like to hurt people either. It's all got twisted inside you, just like everything Shinra touches gets twisted. But by nature, I think you're really a much nicer person than I am. My mum thought so too."

Tseng's throat closed round a painful lump. He wondered if Ifalna had ever actually said this; he wondered whether Aerith truly meant a single word of what she'd just said, and was alarmed to find how much it mattered to him, how badly he wanted to believe that she did.

She went on, "You probably thought it would hurt less for me to think that Zack was dead. If the reason he never came back is because he _couldn't_ come back, then that means he never stopped loving me, right? But I'm _over_ him, Tseng. He _dumped_ me. And so cruelly, too. Maybe he thought he was being cruel to be kind, but why couldn't he have had the courage to tell me to my face that it was over? He was so brave about everything else."

Tseng could not, in all honesty, allow this to pass by. His own sense of honour compelled him to speak. "You're wrong, Aerith. That's not how it happened. You don't know what obstacles were in his way, or what choices he was forced to make. I know for a fact that he didn't choose to leave you. He loved you. If he could have come back to you, he would."

"But don't you see," she answered quietly, "That that just makes it worse?"

_A girl once told me_(said Rufus) _that the way you can tell if your love is real is by imagining how you'd feel if they didn't come home one night. If you'd rather believe they were cheating on you than lying dead in a ditch somewhere, then that's true love. Apparently. _

_ Of course. I'd rather think of you alive and happy _(said Tseng) _than dead._

_ Really? _(eyebrow raised, tone of mild surprise). _I'd so much rather think of you dead in a ditch somewhere than preferring a life without me. But then again, I'm not going anywhere, am I? You always know where to find me._

"Tseng?" said Aerith.

He stared at her.

"I'm over Zack. Really, I am. He was my first love, and nothing can ever change that. But I don't think about him every single moment of every day any more, the way I used to. Sometimes two or three days will go by and I'll won't think about him at all. I haven't had a dream about him for almost a year now."

Ashy fragments of paper drifted upwards in the smoke. They reminded Tseng of Corel – of Banora – of Nibelheim. He remembered the scorched flagstones melting the soles of his shoes, and Zack's arm dangling from the stretcher. Then he thought of the chill of the earth in the badlands, the soothing coolness of the soil in her garden, the feathery tickle of tiny feet as the woodlouse crawled down his finger to the safety of a leaf, and he wished, with all his heart, that he could have done more for her while he had the chance – that things could have turned out differently; that her world could have been what she wanted it to be, rather than the crumbling illusion it truly was.

He could not save her from her fate, any more than he could have saved Zack. He'd bought her a little time, deferred the inevitable; that was all. Aerith's life was not her own, nor had his life been his own since the day she came into it. No – the chain of fate stretched back even further than that, to that day twenty-eight years ago, before Zack, or Aerith, or Rufus had been born, when Commander Veld had found him living rough in the streets behind the Shinra Building, and had brought him home. From that moment the threads of their lives had begun to tangle, and though sometimes those threads lay like chains on his shoulders, at other times they seemed to him more fragile than a spider's web, a string of improbable coincidences.

For what if, on that summer morning long ago, Commander Veld had not set off at dawn to inspect the building works, impelled by a suspicion that the contractors were falsifying their accounts; and what if he had not chosen to take the long way round through Warehouse Street because the weather was beautiful and he wanted to stretch his legs? Had he chosen another morning, a different route, he would not have come across the cardboard box nor looked inside to find the child curled up asleep, a child as small and savage and hungry as a motherless kitten. If it had not been so early in the morning, he might not have stopped at the workman's kiosk for a breakfast to eat en route, and so might not have been holding a half-eaten sandwich to offer to the child, taming it with food long enough to lure it home. The hissing, spitting child would have run away in fright; some other piece of flotsam, drifting past in Midgar's cluttered stream, would have captured Veld's imagination instead, and that stranger would now be wearing Tseng's suit, and standing here in his shoes.

And what would have become of that child, left to sink or swim by his own devices? Tseng liked to think he would have survived, since he was (after all) a rat like the rest of them. Growing up alone in the slums, living on his wits (like Reno) and his fists (like Rude), what would he have amounted to? A waiter in a Wutaian diner? (_Don't laugh at me, Rufus; it was your idea_.) Working slaves' hours for a slave's wages, knowing he was lucky to have any job at all. And then suppose one day, at the end of his rope, cold, hungry, overworked, exhausted, he had wandered into this church and fallen asleep, as any vagrant might do. Would she have been here, singing, when he woke up? Or would she have been floating in a tube in the Shinra labs, with her mother in the tube beside her?

But of course the much likelier scenario was that he would have been recruited into the ranks of the Shinra army. He'd have been just the kind of boy they were looking for, hopeless, rootless, murderously willing. He wouldn't have been the first Wutaian desperate enough to enlist. Their lives were a misery, but misery was relative. Anything was better than starving. He might even have made it into the SOLDIER program. He had all the necessary attributes - though without his three square meals a day, courtesy of the Shinra cafeteria, he might not have grown tall enough - and Lazard, whatever his other faults, had never been a bigot. In a different life, then, he could have _been_ Zack, perhaps -

"I'm thinking of leaving Midgar," said Aerith.

She slipped her arm through his as she spoke, nestling her head against his

shoulder. It was a violation of his personal boundaries far beyond anything she had ever dared before. The soft roundness of her breast moulded itself to his elbow; the curve of her hip nudged his. The smell of her skin and her hair – smoke, earth, flowers, femininity – invaded his senses, and he was forcefully reminded of how just long it had been since he last slept with a woman. The need to put his arms around her almost escaped his control.

"What do you think?" she asked.

Mostly he was wondering if she knew the effect she had on him, and whether she was doing it deliberately. Did she even think of him in that way?

And if her actions were, as he suspected, calculated, then what, exactly, did she want from him?

For something to say, he asked, "Why?" though of course it was an idle question. She would never be allowed to leave Midgar.

"Well," she began, "I don't want to stay stuck in this place for the rest of my life, do I? Mum always said I should get out of the city. She said I'd never find my true self in Midgar because we couldn't talk to the planet here. Mum didn't know about this church. She thought the whole city was deaf and dumb. She said it wasn't natural for a Cetra to settle down in any one place for long. We're supposed to be wanderers. When I was little, every night when she tucked me in she'd tell me about how she and I were going to go on a journey together to find our promised land. Then after she died…."

She dwindled into silence. Her head had grown heavier against his arm; her body, leaning against his, was warm and sturdy. He felt the weight of her all the way down to the soles of his feet and was suddenly aware, in a way that he had never been before, of the earth spinning beneath him, the force of gravity holding him in place - of his own mass and solidity, the living wood of his bones, the velocity of the blood rushing through his veins. Was this strange and pleasant sensation due entirely to her physical proximity: her warmth, the smell of her hair, his own ambiguous, unresolved feelings for her, and the Rufus-shaped hollow in his heart? Or was she doing something else, some Ancient thing, casting a spell over him that had nothing to do with materia?

He heard himself say, "So there really is a promised land?"

"Mum thought so."

"She told Veld it didn't exist."

"No, she told him it wasn't what you were looking for."

It was such a strange, heady feeling, hearing her admit at last that the promised land existed – like a balloon finally cut free after years of tugging upwards on its string. To be honest, there were times when he had fallen prey to doubt. Rufus, of course, didn't believe in it. But then, Rufus had never really known either Aerith or her mother.

"If it's not what we think it is, then what is it?" he asked her.

"I don't know. She never really told me. I was too young to understand. But I think…." She paused, and gave his arm a quick, warning squeeze. "Promise you won't laugh?"

Nothing could have been further from his mind. "I won't laugh."

"Well, then. It isn't the kind of place you can find with a map. Mum always said we'd recognize it when we got there. I think we just have to wander around until we stumble across it. Or maybe…. Maybe it waits until we've given up on it, and then it comes and finds _us._ Maybe it's in front of our noses all the time, and the trick is to learn how to see it. But I also think that it's different for everyone. That's why Mum called it _our_ promised land. Not _the_ promised land. For some people it's a place, for some people it's a time. For some people, it's another person…"

Tseng was well aware that she was making things up, throwing dust in his dazzled eyes. She had always loved to tease him. And he had always come back for more. How many times had he watched her play with Zack in the same way, bending him to her will with the magic of her eyes, her voice, the way she tossed her head… Testing the limit of her powers.

Or was she taunting him? Bursting his balloon? Dangling hope in front of him, only to snatch it away. If she had read his mind and knew what favour he intended to ask -

"You could come with me," she said.

"Ha," he barked.

She let his arm slip from hers and moved away - just a step sideways, enough to put a little distance between them, but not so far as to be out of reach. He thought for a moment that his laughter had offended her, but she did not seem angry. Leaning slightly to one side, as if trying to see him from a different angle, she looked into his face and said, "Come with me, Tseng," and this time he realised she meant it.

"You think I'd leave Shinra for you?" The words tumbled out before he could stop them.

"Not for me. For yourself. To be honest, when I saw you asleep in there I thought you'd already done it. With your little bag packed and everything."

Why was she doing this? What did she want? His protection, presumably: a fast pair of guns, better materia, his knowledge of the world and its hiding places; his expertise in skulking, tracking, and avoiding detection. She was well aware that for four years now he and his team had failed to carry out Shinra's order regarding Commander Veld's assassination. Did she hope that the same trick would work for her, and that if she took their leader along with her, the Turks would politely decline to hunt her down?

"You don't know what you're asking," he said at last.

"Don't tell me you've never considered it."

"It's impossible. I can't leave."

"Tseng, do you know what happens to plants when they're forced to live without sunlight? They stop growing. They get stunted. It's the same with human beings. We need sunshine too, just as much as flowers do. If you could only get out of this city, you'd start to understand. Midgar's not your promised land. You don't belong here, any more than Zack did. I think he was beginning to realize it, too - just before he went away he told me he thought Shinra was a den of monsters, and he didn't mean the kind that come out of the sewers. He meant the human kind. I don't think he trusted anyone in the company by the time he left, except for you and Sephiroth -"

"Don't class me with Sephiroth," Tseng snapped. Rufus's words were still echoing in his ear.

"Don't get angry. I just meant that Zack always thought you were different from the others. Even after Angeal died… He was getting more and more unhappy with the company, but he always trusted you. The very last thing he told me before he went away was that I should go to you if I was ever in trouble. He said he knew he could rely on you to look after me."

Tseng thought that sounded like just the kind of thing Zack _would_ say, generous and presumptuous in equal parts.

"He never really understood about you and me," Aerith went on. "But that wasn't his fault. We never explained it to him, did we? He said to me once that you were the one man in Shinra he was afraid of, because he knew you'd kill him if he let anything happen to me. I've sometimes wondered if maybe that was part of the reason why he left me, the pressure of knowing you had your eye on him. In fact, he asked me once…" She wasn't looking into Tseng's face any more, but away, over his shoulder, into the distance. "He said he thought that you were in love with me yourself."

_He wasn't alone in that_, thought Tseng. But she really shouldn't have said it out loud. His patience had its limits. How many more rules did she plan on breaking tonight?

"And sometimes I've wondered," she said, "If he was right."

It was getting colder. The fire had gone out. Nothing was left of the wagon but some nuts and bolts and a blackened aluminium frame. The rubber had melted from the tyres. Warped by the heat, the wheels lay cooling in the ashes, like miniature versions of the hoops that had circled the wooden barrel of the water-tower at Nibelheim.

"You are what you are," Tseng told her, "And I am what I am. To answer your question: no, I have never seriously considered leaving Shinra, and I have no plans to do so."

A dark flush spread across her cheeks, and down her neck and breasts too. He'd never seen her look chastened before; she was normally such a bold-faced thing. And stubborn, too, so stubborn, like her mother. Despite the metaphorical slap in the face, she wouldn't back down. "That wasn't my question," she insisted.

"I have a department to lead. I won't walk out on them."

"Commander Veld did."

"I won't put them through that again. Besides…" He hesitated, but the need to say it out loud was too great: "There is someone – "

"Oh," she exclaimed; and her surprise was perhaps the most painful thing she had inflicted on him yet. She was truly embarrassed now, twining a lock of hair around her finger, not knowing where to look. "Oh – I see…. Yes, of course. I didn't mean…."

"It doesn't matter," he said, cutting her apologies short. "What I want, what you want, what Zack said or didn't say to you – none of that matters any more. He's dead, and I'm trying to work out how to save the rest of us from ending up the same way. Aerith, look… I think you know I didn't just come here to give you your letters. I need to ask you to do something for me. If you agree, then we may be able to find a way out of this – " _clusterfuck_ was the word on the tip of his tongue - "This difficult situation. If you refuse, then I may soon be in no position to help you."

Aerith put out a hand to touch his sleeve with her fingertips. "Tseng," she said, "What kind of trouble are you in?"

"Serious trouble."

"How bad?"

"It could still get much worse."

"Has it got something to do with Zack?"

"Yes." Not a lie.

"And that's why you came to me."

One could put it that way. "Yes."

"Then of course I'll help you." Head tilted. Sweet, encouraging smile. "What do you want me to do?"

"You can tell me where to find the Promised Land."

The smile froze on her face. He hadn't really hoped for anything better. Her hand fell to her side and she began to turn away. Without thinking, he grabbed her arm, then instantly released it, snatching his hand back as if he'd touched a hot element. But it was enough. Arrested in mid-step, she straightened up and turned to face him, her hands folded protectively across her heart.

"When I say I'm trying to save us," he said, "That includes you. My department is on the verge of being terminated. You understand what that means, don't you? Once we go, you're on your own. If you don't want that to happen, you have to work with me. I need to give the President something he wants, something big, something that will convince him the Turks are worth keeping."

"But I've already told you everything I know. More than I've ever told anyone."

"I don't believe you."

"I can't help that!"

Tseng's hands itched to slap some sense into her. But he remembered the failure of Veld's attempt at reasoning with violence, the red handprint on Ifalna's cheek, her bleeding lip, her look of triumph. Not that way.

How could he make her see? "If you really don't know anything," he said, "Then you're no use to Shinra, and we've been wasting our time with you."

"I never asked for Shinra's time. I don't want anything from Shinra. All I've ever wanted is to be left alone."

"That's never been an option. Up until now the President has allowed you your freedom because he believes you hold the key to Shinra's future, and he hoped you would eventually see the wisdom of cooperating freely. If you know nothing about the Promised Land, then you are no use to him, and if you are of no use to him, then he has no reason to take any further interest in your welfare. He might as well let Hojo have you. Our professor enjoys dissecting rare specimens, as I think you know."

He could hear his voice shifting into a lower register, cold, quiet, barely inflected: his business voice. Aerith's hand closed round her throat. She stared at him, appalled. "You would let him do that?"

If Tseng had been a man like Zack, impulsively following his first instincts, he would have put his arms around her then, knowing it was likely to be his last chance; he would have held her tight, buried his face in her hair, and reassured her, _As long as I live, no one will harm you, I swear._ And his promise would have been worth about as much as Zack's promise to return to her had been.

So instead he replied, in his businesslike voice, "I don't know when the Old Man will get tired of waiting for you to cooperate; it might not be for another year, or it might be tomorrow, but sooner or later he will give the order to bring you in. He will get what he wants from you, one way or another. He always does. If you really want to help me, Aerith, help yourself, and tell me something that will make him happy. Let me prove to him all these years we've spent cultivating you haven't been wasted."

"_Cultivating_ me?" she cried.

"You and I had an understanding. We might not have signed a contract, but you knew what the deal was. A lot of money, and a lot of man-hours, most of them mine, have been invested in you. I put myself on the line to give you these fifteen years of freedom. It's time you upheld your end of the bargain. You're a company asset, and we're entitled to see a return."

Aerith's two fists were pressed against her heart. "This isn't you talking," she exclaimed.

"Is that what you think?" He took a step towards her. She immediately backed away, staring at him with large, round, bewildered eyes. "Am I frightening you?" he asked.

"Yes! Stop it!"

"For years I swore to myself that when the time came to bring you in, I'd kill you – "

"Kill me?" she gasped.

He took note of the set of her shoulders, poised to make a leap; he observed that her leg muscles had tensed, and that her fingers were twitching. She was thinking of making a lunge for her weapon.

He said, "But I can't do it. You're too valuable to us alive – "

She darted sideways, hand outstretched, but he was quicker. His bullet hit the orb of materia dead centre: her staff went flying into the furthest corner of the yard, and her hand closed around empty air. Echoes ricocheted off the tenement walls.

"Don't try that again," Tseng warned her.

Up in one of the third floor apartments, somebody slammed a window shut.

"You – " she began. But no word, it seemed, was large enough, ugly enough, angry enough, to express what she felt. Tears filled her eyes: hot tears of rage and disbelief. She was too furious to be frightened any more. If by looks alone she could have struck him down, he would have been on his knees. Yet even now there was no real hatred in her eyes, but only something even more unbearable: comprehension.

"All this time," she said, "You were so kind – looking out for me – You always acted like a friend. And today, bringing me my letters, and offering me your shoulder to cry on, and worming my secrets out of me – and your empty apologies – And all this time you've been buttering me up so you can hand me over to Shinra to save your _own_ neck?"

"If my life was the only one at stake, I'd shoot us both right now."

"I don't see what's stopping you."

Sweat trickled between his shoulder blades. His collar felt too tight. "I _am_ your friend," he insisted, because he knew that nothing was more true. "I'm trying to make you see what your choices are. If you cooperate, you might live. If you refuse, you will die, probably by inches; Hojo's very thorough. Either way, Shinra will get what it wants from you. Everybody talks in the end, believe me."

"Believe you?" she exclaimed. "How can I believe you when I don't even recognize you? This isn't _you_, Tseng. I _know_ you. This is Shinra talking."

"No," he said, "This is the way it is. I can't save you, Aerith. Only you can do that. But I might be able to save my Turks, if you'll help me. All you have to do is tell me how to find the Promised Land."

"But I keep telling you I don't know! And even if I did, this – you – _this_ is exactly the reason why I could never tell you. If Shinra found it, they'd start exploiting it; they'd squeeze every last drop of gil out of it and _ruin_ it, like they ruin everything they get their hands on_."_

"It doesn't have to be that way," he said. "If you were working with us, you could help us bring about a change."

She gaped at him. "Are you _mad_? Shinra will never change."

"You're wrong. There are people, powerful people, in the company who want change. You could help us make it happen."

"That Old Man's only interested in me because he thinks I can make him richer. I refuse to be used like that."

"I'm not talking about him, Aerith."

"What difference does it make? They're all the same. If those are my choices, I'd rather die."

Tseng could restrain himself no longer. "Stop being so damned stubborn!" he shouted. "Do you want to end up like your mother?"

"Better than ending up like _you_," Aerith hurled back. "Look what Shinra's turned you into. How can you stand to be what you are? A blackmailer. An extortionist. A _murderer_."

She wasn't wrong about any of those things. The sting was in the way she phrased it. The injustice was that she should say such things to him at all. "For _you_," he retaliated, goaded into defending himself at last. "The first man I ever killed was for your sake. He was in your way, so I killed him; I killed an innocent man so that you could escape and _live_. And your mother thanked me. She _thanked_ me. The day you can put your hand on your heart and tell me, in all honesty, that you wish that that man had lived and that you had spent the last fifteen years of your life in Hojo's laboratory instead of in freedom - on that day, Aerith, you can call me whatever names you like. But until that day comes, you would do better to think instead about what you owe me."

Tseng stopped, and ran a shaking hand over his head. He had not meant to say that. Aerith was staring at him, breathing so heavily her entire body shook. He could feel himself shrinking in her sight, and was torn between anger and despair: anger at her fatuous heroics; despair at his inability to get through to her.

"Are you done?" she demanded.

"Are you in any state to listen to reason?"

"If that's what you call reason, I think I've heard enough."

"So you won't help me?"

"I can't."

"You're determined to be a martyr, then?"

"I don't know what you want me to do. I've told you the truth. Am I supposed to lie? Make something up?"

The ringing of his phone prevented him from answering. Digging it out of his pocket, he put it to his ear, all the time keeping a close eye on Aerith in case she made another dash for her weapon. "What?" he snapped.

"It's me, sir," said Rosalind. "Knox and I are on site now."

The bomb at the materia factory. He'd forgotten all about it. "What can you tell me?" he asked.

"The damage was confined to a relatively small area, but the body count's pretty high. They hit the staff canteen."

"The canteen?" Why, when they could have struck at the production line, or the materia warehouses, or the high security library where the formula records were stored? Was this bombing more work by clumsy wannabes, or were Avalanche deliberating targeting Shinra's people in an attempt to spread maximum terror?

"Should I come down there?" he asked her,

"I don't think that's necessary, sir. We're about to do an initial survey, but it doesn't look as if any sensitive areas were breached. It should be a routine procedure."

"All right. I trust your judgement. Once you've confirmed that there's no risk to confidential information, pull out and let Public Safety handle the rest. I'm almost done here, then I'm heading back to the office. Call me if anything comes up."

"Will do, sir."

He put the phone away. Aerith glared at him defiantly.

"If you wanted to, you could help us put an end to all this," he said.

"That's a _wicked_ thing to say."

He hesitated, considering what his next move should be. One final gambit remained to him. He had held it in reserve, hoping things wouldn't come to this pass. If he played it, any small shred of respect she still felt for him would be destroyed. But so what? He would rather have her hatred than her death on his conscience. And he had tried every other means.

"Cooperating with us would be in everyone's best interests," he said. "You've already lost one mother. You wouldn't want to lose another," and his voice was all business, now.

Most people, hearing those words from a Turk's mouth, would have understood them immediately. Aerith needed a couple of moments for the threat to sink in. She blinked at him stupidly, her lips slightly parted. Then his meaning became clear to her. The doubt in her face turned to shock, which lasted only for a second before hardening into contempt.

"So," she said slowly, "It _is_ true, what they say about you. Zack got you all wrong."

"Zack was wrong about many things. That's why he's dead. I have to go back to work now, but you need to think very carefully about what I've said. I'll give you two weeks. Maybe you'll come to your senses by then. And don't try to leave Midgar. I really don't think Elmyra would like it."

He holstered his gun, turned his back on her and began to walk away. With every step he took, he expected to feel the blast of her materia tearing a hole between his shoulder blades, but it never came. She let him go.

He was disappointed.

* * *

_This chapter is for the lovely, witty, wise, kind **Octorawk,** who I think loves Tseng (and his ears) even more than I do!_

_Thanks to everyone for reading. I hope I gave satisfaction. Feedback is much appreciated, but not compulsory._


	61. Now You See It

**CHAPTER 61: NOW YOU SEE IT**

* * *

_Author's note: It's been a while, hasn't it? More on that at the end of this chapter. I've included a "the story so far" section in case you've forgotten what's been happening. God knows, I forget myself sometimes. Some of you may recognize the first section of this chapter from a one-shot I posted many months ago at AN Other fic site. That short fic was always intended to be a part of this story, and this chapter is where it belongs. It's been edited, but not really changed, except for the last few sentences._

The story so far:

The Turks' failure to capture and execute their renegade ex-commander, Veld, has brought them under intense suspicion. Scarlet, who feels that the Turks stand in the way of her bid for control of the company, is working tirelessly to turn the President against them. Tseng hoped that by capturing Genesis the Turks might prove their competence and regain some of the President's trust, but the army out-maneuvered him and got to Genesis first. The President then pitted the army directly against the Turks in a race to capture Zack, and once again, the Turks failed.

Cissnei has taken refuge in a safe house on the plate. Mink (Martial Arts female) appears to have deserted from Shinra as an expression of her outrage over Zack's death. Reno, his faith in Tseng badly dented after discovering the truth about Tseng's relationship with Rufus, went on a massive drink-and-drugs bender through Wall Market immediately after Zack's death, dragging Aviva (Knives) with him. Rude caught up with them in the Honeybee Inn, where they were involved in a bar-wrecking brawl with a group of army officers led by Colonel Hugo Viljoen. Reno was rendered unconscious and carried by Rude to the hotel. That night Aviva's hopes were shattered when she realised that Reno still loves Cissnei, and so she fled, leaving no clue as to where she has gone.

The next morning Reno woke with no memory of the previous night's events. He escaped from Rude's surveillance, and went to the bunker to confront Rufus. During the course of this confrontation Reno's faith in Tseng was somewhat restored when he learnt that Tseng ended his relationship with Rufus the night before; however, he has also been forced to acknowledge that Rufus is capable of sincere emotions, and has matured into someone more substantial than the spoiled, egotistical, manipulative teenager he once was.

Meanwhile, Tseng has gone down to the church in Sector 5 to return Aerith's letters and to break the news to her that Zack is dead. However, Aerith adamantly refuses to believe him, telling him that the messages she received from her "voices" were ambiguous. While he is talking to her, Rosalind (Gun; Elena's sister) calls to tell him that the materia factory on the outskirts of Midgar has been bombed in a terrorist attack. He orders her to go with Knox (Katana) to investigate.

Aerith burns her letters to prevent them falling into the wrong hands, then tells Tseng she is planning to leave Midgar, and asks him to come with her. He responds by telling her that the Turks are on the brink of extermination, but that she has the power to save them: he asks her to share with Shinra her knowledge of the Promised Land. The argument that follows ends with Tseng threatening Elmyra in an attempt to force Aerith's cooperation. They part in anger and mutual mistrust.

About 28 hours have passed since Zack died. Now read on...

* * *

Once, when Reno was sixteen years old, he'd played a little prank on the department. Or maybe you'd call it more of a joke: funny 'coz it's true. He'd been working for Shinra for about nine months by that point, which would have been roughly four years before Tseng was promoted to second-in-command.

He'd put a lot of effort into getting it right. First he'd done the typesetting on the computer, trying out different fonts until he found one that looked official. Then he'd copied the logo off a letterhead and spent the whole afternoon figuring out how to enlarge it without making it look blurry. By dint of hanging around the office after hours, he'd finally managed to get some time alone with the colour printer. The next day, while Tseng was out having a late lunch and Veld was at a meeting and everyone else was busy with jobs or on missions, he'd quietly laid hands on the departmental floor directory that hung on the wall by the lifts (_Welcome to the Department of Administrative Research, Investigative Affairs Division. Conference room, 4801; Interview Room, 4802, Kitchen, 4803….) _lifted it down, carried it into the materia room where he was supposed to be working, opened the frame, removed the sheet of paper printed with the floor's directions, and replaced it with his own handiwork. Then, checking carefully that the coast was clear, he'd hung the frame with its new contents back on the wall.

He couldn't wait for the others to notice it. He was eager to see their faces and hear them laugh. Besides, if Tseng was the one who saw it first, he'd take it straight down, depriving everyone of the chance to appreciate Reno's wit. If the Chief caught sight of it, Reno would get a swift clip round the ear into the bargain, but he was willing to take that risk.

"Hey," he called. "Hey, guys. Something kinda funny here."

They appeared through various doors – Cissnei from their shared work room, Rude up from the lounge where he'd been watching the chocobo races (god, he'd still had hair then, dark brown and curly. Like another lifetime_)_ and Rosalind from the kitchen, looking so young in his memory, with her blond hair swinging past her shoulders. When he'd first joined the Turks she'd intimidated the crap out of him; he'd never met a woman like her, serious, efficient, pretty in a fresh-scrubbed kind of way and yet clueless at flirting, but perfectly capable of shooting his nuts off one at a time without wasting a bullet. Of course, it hadn't taken him long to find a way to get under her skin.

"Hey, look," he said, pointing. "We got a new directory."

A little suspiciously – because they knew him, knew that grin on his face – they gathered round. And this is what they read:

SHINRA ELECTRIC POWER COMPANY  
WELCOMES YOU TO  
VELD'S HOME FOR  
STRAY DOGS  
FOUNDLINGS  
AND LOST CAUSES

"You wrote that," said Rosalind at once, not amused.

Rude snorted a laugh.

"That's you, man," said Reno, putting his finger on _stray dogs._

"Woof," said Rude, grinning.

Cissnei – she was aged fifteen and a half, then, and officially their rookie; even though she'd been on the payroll for longer than Reno she'd only been working in the office for a fortnight, and in that short time she had already managed to inform him nine times, in a variety of ways, that he was the most annoying asshole she'd ever had the misfortune to meet - Cissnei gave a throaty little laugh and looked at Reno like she was maybe thinking of revising her opinion of him upwards just a peg or two. Score!

"Very funny, Reno," said Rosalind in that tone which meant it was anything but. "Now take it down."

Reno pointed his finger at '_lost causes'_. "You know that's you, Roz, don't you?"

"Takes one to know one."

"I'll just make it official… " He pulled a marker pen from his top pocket - it happened to be a red one, which meant his painstaking masterpiece would be ruined, but who cared? – and scribbled her name next to _lost causes_, saying out loud as he did so, "Roz – i – lind – "

"That's not even how you spell it. Give me that – " Grabbing the pen, she pushed him aside, crossed out her name and wrote _R-E-N-O. "_Fixed!" she cried.

The elevator pinged and the lift doors opened. There stood Tseng in all his you'll-never-be-as-good-as-me-so-don't-even-bother-trying perfection, his suit immaculately pressed, his shoes polished, not a hair out of place in that dinky ponytail that by all rights ought to have looked as sissy as a girl's blouse but somehow just fucking_ didn't. _

Right from the first day Reno had joined the department, Tseng had been rubbing him up the wrong way. He didn't mind taking orders from Commander Veld; in fact, he had swiftly developed a healthy fear of the Chief, and not because of the beatings. Shit, he'd put up with worse when he was smaller than what the Chief dished out. A kid messed up, he got his arse whacked. How else was he going to learn? No, what Reno feared – what really, surprisingly, hurt - was the look of disappointment on the Chief's face. _Why did you let yourself down, son? I know you can do better than this._

Nobody else had ever suggested to him that he had the potential to amount to something. He wasn't entirely convinced of it himself, and he lived in daily fear that the Chief might wake up one morning to the realization that he'd been wrong about Reno; that Reno was, in fact, a lost cause. His fear of Veld's displeasure was what had taught him that security was to be found in obedience, and when he heard people muttering _Shinra dog _behind his back he grinned to himself like a dog grins when it wags its tail, because he knew something they didn't know. He knew why dogs looked so happy all the time.

So he had no trouble taking orders from the Chief, but Tseng was something else again. Sixteen-year-old Reno resented Tseng's air of superiority, which, as far as he could tell, seemed to be based on nothing but his slight advantage in age and his personal closeness to the Commander. Thanks to the Chief, his Wute had grown up in a safe, cosy office, always warm, always with enough to eat. He'd gone to the poshest school on the plate, brass buttons on his uniform and all. What the hell did he know of the real world, the world beyond Shinra, Reno's world, where fighting wasn't about honour, but survival? The Chief's pampered pet – a spoiled, exotic animal - that's all Mr. high and mighty Tseng was.

In those early days of Reno's career a slime of bigotry had still clung to the infant Turk so recently delivered out of the slums, where, if people had nothing else (and they did have nothing else), they nevertheless had the consolation of knowing that there was somebody worse off than they were. They might be poor and downtrodden, but at least they were human beings, not fleas. Several years would have to pass before Reno could admit to himself that the real reason he resented Tseng was because he envied him, because Tseng had all the qualities he admired but knew he would never have. It would be longer still before the full truth dawned: that he would rather die following Tseng on a mission into the pit of hell, than live to take orders from some lesser man.

That realization was still far in the future on the day they stood confronting each other at the entrance to the 48th floor, one scrawny redheaded boy with sharp elbows and a big mouth, and one young man with dark, slanted eyes, wearing a suit and tie and all the dignity of his twenty years. Tseng stepped out of the elevator; Cissnei, Rude and Rosalind automatically moved aside to give him a clear view of the thing they'd all been looking at. Tseng read it, making no comment. His face didn't change expression. Then he turned and gave Reno _such_ a look, a look that said - to Reno – that as far as the Wute was concerned Reno was a piece of dirt that had come into their floor on the sole of their Commander's shoe and been accidentally wiped on their carpet.

Tseng said, "I'm sure you've persuaded yourself you're a comic genius, Reno, but nobody else is laughing."

"Cissnei was," Reno retorted.

Cissnei shot him a dirty look. He blamed Tseng for that, too.

Tseng turned and began to walk away, saying, as he did so, "Get rid of it."

Reno's blood boiled. The slanty-eyed bastard hadn't even taken the trouble to look him in the face while he gave his 'order'. What the hell gave him the right to tell Reno what to do? Okay, so maybe he'd been around the department for a few years longer and maybe he had some _technical_ seniority over Reno, but that didn't mean he had to talk to Reno like Reno was his _slave_. People weren't slaves in Midgar. This wasn't Wutai.

Reno longed to be able to hurl these words at him, to articulate his thoughts with knife-edge precision and thus cut Tseng down to size once and for all. Unfortunately, he was so riled up that what came out of his mouth wasn't at all what he'd hoped or intended.

"You're not the boss of me!" he had shouted.

Tseng gave no sign that he'd heard, but of course the others had fallen about laughing the moment he was out of sight. And _of course_ it had become a running gag in the department for several weeks afterwards – "No, Knox, I won't lend you my pen, you're not the boss of me!" - "No, make your own coffee, Rude, you're not the boss of me!" – and even, "No, useless photocopier, I refuse to open your door and remove your paper jam! You're not the boss of me!" Et cetera. Reno, naturally, regretted having opened his mouth.

Cissnei was the first to use the nickname to Tseng's face; she could get away with that kind of cheekiness, and she knew it. He'd looked slightly pained – _lord, why must I suffer these fools to live? – _but hadn't reprimanded her, and so quite soon they were all using it. The first time Veld heard it, he'd laughed, grabbing Tseng by the scruff of the neck and giving him a rough shake in an affectionate kind of way, the way a big ornery old raggedy tom cat might cuff an presumptuous kitten. "Boss, huh?" he'd said. "I think you're getting a little ahead of yourself there, son." All the same, he'd looked pleased: like everything was starting to fall into place just the way he had planned it. Or so it seemed to Reno, as he sat with his feet up on the duty desk, gazing over at the floor directory long restored to its rightful place, and remembering what it had been like when they were children, all those years ago.

The elevator pinged, pulling him out of his memories. He looked around as the doors opened, but it wasn't Tseng standing there, just Skeeter.

.

Tseng walked briskly to the Sector Five station, where he found the plate-bound platform filling up with night-shift workers. They edged aside to let him pass, and he made his way to the far end of the platform, where twisted ropes of scarlet and gold cordoned off the executive waiting area from the hordes of the great unwashed. The next train wasn't due to arrive for another fifteen minutes. Normally he would have gone into the little executive lounge, sat down in one of the upholstered chairs and got out some work or read the paper. Tonight, he felt compelled to keep moving. If it had been physically possible he would have walked without stopping all the way back to the Shinra Building, forging onward at such speed that his thoughts would have had no chance to catch up with him. As it was, he prowled along the edge of the platform, craning his neck for a glimpse of the train approaching down the tunnel, well aware that to the people watching him he must look, to say the least, eccentric: like a nervous guard hound pacing in its cage.

He deeply regretted having threatened Elmyra. Once a threat was issued, one had to be prepared to carry it out, and if Aerith remained intractable he might be forced to follow up his words with actions. But what else could he have done, when she was so obstinately determined to sacrifice herself for nothing? She had no idea of the forces she was dealing with. Entrenched in the belief that her will was stronger than Shinra's, her cause more righteous, any attempt to put pressure on her merely encouraged her to dig her heels in deeper.

Of course she would say she'd rather die than cooperate with Shinra. To Aerith, death was something natural and gentle: a ripple in the flow of time. She had no conception of what death really meant, _physical_ death, death by torture, the prolonged agony of a young body unready to die but too broken to live. She'd seen her mother die, yes, but she'd been very young then – and in any case, Ifalna's death had been quick and merciful compared to the kind of death that awaited Aerith at Hojo's hands.

How could he get that message through to her? What more could he do? Should he have told her the truth about what had happened to Zack? Would that have helped to make her see that there truly was no way out?

The train pulled in. He boarded the executive carriage, choosing to stand rather than taking a seat in the otherwise empty compartment. She was so adamant in her insistence that she knew nothing about the Promised Land! He was almost certain she was lying, but when even his threat against Elmyra had failed to make her budge -

Either way, it made no difference. If she did not share her secret, she would die. If she had no secret to share, she would also die. The Old Man would tear her apart looking for the answers he believed she contained, and if he discovered she was empty his rage and disappointment would know no bounds. For the Turks, who had protected her so long, it would be the final nail in their coffin.

She had asked him to run away with her. _Come with me, Tseng_. She had actually said those words. He hadn't dreamt them. And he'd laughed at her. Why had he laughed? Rufus was lost to him. He knew Aerith did not love him, but he was sure she would do her best to fake it if she felt she owed him one. His Turks would feel betrayed, but not surprised… In fact, if Reno kept his wits about him, he might even be able to turn Tseng's defection to their advantage by laying the blame for everything that had gone wrong these last years on him, the Wute, the parasite, the turncoat, who had obviously been planning all along to stab his employer in the back and elope with the primary objective. One change of clothing and a phone call to Reno once they were well clear of Midgar was all it would take. Aerith could cut off his hair with her scissors, and he would tie a bandana around his forehead like Avalanche's Shears, and off they would ride hand-in-hand into the sunset, outlaws together, in a vision as absurd as any of Rufus' far-fetched romantic daydreams -

The train jolted to a halt. Tseng staggered, recovering his balance, and saw that they had arrived at the Sector One station.

.

Skeeter stepped out of the elevator, bringing with him the mouth-watering aroma of salt and vinegar. In his hand he carried a cone made from a rolled-up newspaper, filled with fried potatoes and a pair of lobster-pink saveloy sausages. "Hey Reno," he said. "You're back. Wow – _two_ black eyes? Must've been some fight. Have a chip?"

Reno helped himself. Skeeter grasped the neck of Reno's vodka bottle, lifted it to his lips, took a swig. "Sorry I was gone so long," he said. "I saw the news about the materia factory on the screen in the square, so I came straight back. Did Roz go down?"

"And Knox," said Reno through a mouthful of sausage. He hadn't eaten since the toasted cheese sandwich, and that had been a long time ago. They finished off the rest of Skeeter's supper together, and the vodka too. Then Skeeter said he supposed he'd better be getting back to work. Reno asked him what he was doing. "Shifting," Skeeter replied.

This was their code word for the slow process of moving vital equipment out of the Shinra building into somewhere more secure. Now that all the most sensitive files had been transferred to the bunker, they had turned their attention to their arsenal and were stockpiling materia and weapons in small caches under the plate – not in the bunker itself, but in various neglected nooks and crannies tucked away down long, lonely corridors that smelt of stale mako and rusty iron and monster piss. Skeeter's present task was to disassemble certain weapons – guns, mostly – into pieces small enough to be carried inconspicuously on a Turk's person. Down in the bunker the guns were reassembled, and then, when the Turk's shift was over, dropped into one or other cache on the way back up to the surface. "Want to lend a hand?" he asked Reno.

"Sure, why not?" Skeeter was always easy company, and Reno would rather have something to keep his hands busy than sit alone at the desk with his thoughts. If the phone rang, he'd hear it from the weapons room.

.

Tseng disembarked and set off in the direction of the office, passing the coffee shop before crossing the bridge that spanned the junction of the two plates, and so along the upper esplanade, down the stairs, through the crowds of Fountain Square, and into the alley that would bring him home. He could have walked this route in his sleep.

Then something happened to make him wonder if he _was_ dreaming, because as he turned the corner into Shinra Plaza he thought he heard Rufus's voice whisper in his ear

_Tseng _

and it felt so real that he stopped and looked around, wondering where it had come from.

_Tseng -_

_If my Old Man was dead, Aerith would be safe - _

Tseng shook himself, as if a mere shrug could dislodge the invisible presence riding on his shoulder, and pressed on at a faster pace.

_Tseng, listen._

_If he was dead_

_ You wouldn't have to worry about anything any more._

_Tseng,_

_All our problems would be solved_

_ If he was dead -_

The entrance to the building loomed before him. Mercifully, Rufus's voice faded. Tseng swiped his card through the security stile and went in. As he passed through the lobby on his way to the mezzanine, he noted that there were many more soldiers milling about than was usual at this time of day. Security must have been upped to S-level following the bombing at the materia factory. He wondered how Knox and Roz were getting on down there.

.

Reno had taken apart one EMR, labelled and bagged its pieces, and was starting on another when he remembered the half-promise he had made to Tys to wire up a rod for him so it would cast a pyramid of light. Maybe he should do it now? It wouldn't take long - the process was pretty simple - and Tys wanted it so badly. Reno felt right now like he wouldn't mind doing something to make somebody else happy.

Just then his phone rang. Not his official PHS, but his other, black-market phone, whose number was known only to his fellow Turks. Reno hesitated, glancing over at the light fitting where he knew a bugging device was concealed. Who could be calling him? Rude? Tseng? Shit – what if Tseng had found out about his visit to Rufus? Feeling slightly queasy, he pulled the phone from his back pocket and put it to his ear. "Yes?"

"Reno -"

"Roz?"

Something was wrong. Roz sounded like she was fighting for breath. "Reno," she said between gasps, "If you're still in the building, get out of there now. Scarlet's dead. Knox killed her – "

"_Dead_?"

"There's no time to explain. They got him. They're looking for me. They'll be coming for you. Has Tseng come back?"

"No – "

"I'll call him. Just get out. Hurry, Reno. Please – "

Her voice cut out. His line buzzed with static. Reno stared at his phone in disbelief.

"Who's dead?" asked Skeeter.

"Scarlet," said Reno. "Knox killed her." It didn't sound any more real coming out of his own mouth.

Skeeter's eyes grew round. "What?"

"We have to get out of here."

"But - why would he do that?"

_Doesn't matter_, thought Reno. _Escape, that's what matters. How? Not the elevator, a cage, a trap. Not the stairs, a bottleneck. Soldiers from above and below. Nowhere to run. Where else? The floor between floors is a dead end. The ventilation shafts – _

He grabbed a couple of screwdrivers and a coil of rope from its hook on the wall and ran into the corridor, with Skeeter right behind him. He thought he could hear the echo of boots marching down the stairwell, but maybe that was only the drumming of the blood in his ears. Turning left, he darted into the materia room. Skeeter followed. The door hissed shut behind them, and Reno locked it with the keypad combination.

The materia he needed to get at was in a padlocked cabinet. No time to look for the key; using both hands, he wrenched the cabinet door off its hinges, and with bleeding fingertips pulled out the two support materia for the summons in Veld's daughter's hand. One he gave to Skeeter, putting the other in his own pocket.

Skeeter looked bewildered. "This can't be for real. There must be some mistake."

Reno didn't reply. Talk would be a waste of time right now. They had to move fast. He put a screwdriver into Skeeter's hand and together they set to work removing the grill from the ventilation shaft – but Skeeter moved at a snail's pace, and after a moment which felt like minutes to Reno (he could hear the boots coming closer) he shoved the younger Turk aside and quickly finished the job. "Get in," he said.

"You should go first – "

"Don't argue with me. Get in."

On his hands and knees Skeeter climbed into the shaft. Reno threw the rope after him. The space was too tight to turn around in; Skeeter had to crane his head down and look between his thighs in order to talk to Reno. The boots could be heard in the corridor now. Reno counted at least twenty pairs. "Here," he said, taking the support materia from his pocket and stuffing it into Skeeter's jacket. "Get going. Keep the noise down. I'll cover for you."

"I can't leave you – "

But Reno had already replaced the grill, holding it in position with one hand while the other turned the screws. "Go to the bunker," he said. "Tell Rude what's happened. That's an order. Now _move."_

Obediently Skeeter began to crawl away into the darkness. A moment later, the marching boots came to a halt right outside the door. There was a brief silence. Then the door started shuddering, giving off a high-pitched whirring noise: its automated opening mechanism was straining against the lock that held it shut. Evidently no one had entrusted the soldiers with the over-ride code. Reno gave the screwdriver one last twist and stood up. Outside, the soldiers had begun hammering on the door with their rifle butts. Pulling open the nearest materia drawer, Reno shoved both screwdrivers right to the back and pushed the drawer shut, feeling its runners jam as they hit the buffers. If the soldiers searched the room, it wouldn't take them long to find the screwdrivers, and then, if they had two brain cells to rub together, they'd work out the rest - but at least he'd bought Skeet a little time. Maybe it would be enough.

He thought about drawing his EMR, not that it would make much of a dent in twenty squaddies. Then he thought about helping himself to one of the fire materia from the mastered materia cupboard and going out in a blaze of glory, taking his enemies with him… And if he'd been somebody like Hunter, or maybe even Rude, he might have done it. But he was Reno, alas, and his curiosity, that terrible, terrible need to know that was bane of his existence, was too strong for him. He'd be damned if he died before he found out exactly what was going on here.

The rifle butts stopped hammering. Someone on the other side of the door said, "Tell me the code," and Reno's gut twisted, for the speaker was Colonel Hugo Viljoen.

"There's no one in there," Tseng replied.

At the sound of that voice, as calm and collected as always, Reno almost fell apart. If they'd got the Boss, then all was lost. How'd they get him? How? Tseng wasn't even supposed to be in the building. He was supposed to be down in Sector 5, making up for lost time with Aerith Gainsborough. What did he have to come back for? What the fuck was wrong with him? Why the fuck couldn't he for once in his life have taken the fucking night off?

"Do you think I'm stupid?" said Viljoen. "Hey - you in there," he called through the door. "You. Turks. Listen." Reno heard a dull thud, the sound of a fist striking flesh. Tseng gave a grunt of pain. "I've got a little flea out here," said Viljoen, "And if you two don't come out quickly with your hands up I'm going to start pulling its little fucking legs off, one by one. You hear me? Hey?"

"I'm opening the door!" Reno shouted. But his hands wouldn't obey him. So swift and sure only moments before, they were shaking now, and as his fingers skittered frantically across the keypad he could hear Viljoen punching Tseng again and again. Tseng made no further sound, but Reno didn't need to hear him in order to picture Viljoen's fists slamming into his face.

Finally he managed to key in the combination. The door gave a jerk and slid open. There stood Tseng, with a trooper standing on either side of him, holding him by the upper arms. He looked younger, somehow - maybe because his hair had lost its leather bootlace and hung loosely about his face. His suit was in disarray, his shirttails pulled out and the jacket tugged part-way down his arms as if the soldiers had been shoving him back and forth between them. Viljoen's fist had split his lip. Dark blood dripped from his chin onto his white shirt-front, and the Colonel's knuckles were red.

"Well, well," Viljoen smiled, "Look what we have here. This evening keeps getting better and better."

All Reno could think of was _fuck you cunt get your hands off him _and leaping for Viljoen's throat, but even with his speed he didn't think he'd make it, not with all those soldiers pointing their rifles at him.

"Reno," said Tseng.

Someone who did not know Tseng well – someone like the Colonel, for instance – might have thought his voice sounded cold, indifferent, and might have concluded from this that the fate of his subordinate was of even less concern to him than his own. Reno knew better. His ear was tuned to the subtlest shadings of that quiet voice, the most minute changes in his Boss's facial expressions. _Don't do anything rash_, was what Tseng was saying._ Follow my lead._

Reno raised his hands in the air, painfully conscious that by doing so he was exposing his soft parts to the soldier's rifle butts. Plastering his best smartass grin across his face, he sauntered into the corridor and said, "Hey, Boss. We gotta stop meeting like this."

"You think this is funny?" Viljoen demanded. "Where is the other one?"

"What other – "

Reno's words were cut short by a punch to the gut that drove the air from his lungs and sent him staggering back against the wall. Tseng lunged against the restraining hands of the troopers, but could not break free.

"Don't get lippy with me," said Viljoen. He motion for three soldiers to come forward. "Locke," he said to the first, "Take his weapons. Miller, Petrenko, search this room."

The soldier named Locke relieved Reno of his guns and EMR and then methodically patted him down, removing the little pistol from where it was tucked into his waistband. Tseng recognised Aviva's weapon; Reno saw his expression change. When Locke's hands started checking through his pockets, Reno was seized by the suicidal urge to quip _feel anything you like?_ but he was still having difficulty breathing and couldn't suck enough air into his lungs to get the words out. It was probably just as well.

"Not so full of ourselves now, are we?" smiled Viljoen. "There's no whores or slum scum here for you to hide behind. You won't be worming your way out of this one. We found the weapons you were bagging. Theft of company property, attempted assassination of a board member, murder, conspiracy – every one of them a capital offense – "

"Tseng!" came a shout from down the corridor. "Where is he? Tseng!"

They all knew that voice. The soldiers immediately snapped to attention; Colonel Viljoen wiped his knuckles, still red with Tseng's blood, on his trouser leg. Even Reno and Tseng instinctively stood up a little straighter.

President Shinra came into sight, surrounded by half a dozen soldiers. Scarlet and Heidegger followed close on his heels. "Fuck, she's not dead!" Reno exclaimed. "Watch your language," snarled Viljoen, backhanding him across the mouth. Scarlet spared him one passing glance, enough to let him know that both he, and his outburst, were utterly negligible in her eyes, before returning her attention to the main event.

President Shinra walked right up to Tseng, so close that their noses were less than a hand's-span apart. Viljoen tried to protest, "Sir, please, stand back, he's dangerous – " but the President cut him off with a gesture.

He was angry. Everybody could see that; it was what they expected to see. Reno wondered if they could also see the fear that he was struggling to conceal, not just from the Turks, but, more importantly, from Scarlet and Heidegger, and from the assembled soldiers.

"Where is he?" said the Old Man.

Reno couldn't remembered the last time he'd seen the President look afraid. Even when Fuhito had drawn a gun on him in Junon all those years ago, he hadn't turned a hair. Under those layers of fat ran nerves of steel. Like father, like son.

"There is no one on this floor but your Turks, sir." The split in Tseng's lip was causing him to slur his words a little. He held the Old Man's angry stare without blinking. Outwardly he appeared to be as self-possessed as always, but Reno could tell, from the curve of Tseng's eyebrow and the line of his jaw, that beneath his calm surface Tseng was seething, and he hoped that nobody else, least of all Rufus's father, could read Tseng well enough to feel the force of the dislike radiating off him in waves, like heat off a burning road.

"My son," said the President. "My son. Where is he?"

"Lazard Deusericus is dead, sir."

The Old Man flinched and recoiled as if Tseng had struck him.

Scarlet pushed a soldier aside and took up her position by the Old Man's shoulder. "Your lies won't wash any more, traitor," she said to Tseng. "The President sees you for what you are now. Admit it: Rufus is dead. The whole city's talking about it; there's no point in denying it. That poor child is dead and his blood is on your hands. You're probably responsible for Lazard's death, too."

"As far as I know, sir," said Tseng, refusing to look at Scarlet or even acknowledge that she had spoken, "Vice-President Rufus is on an extended business trip. Those were your instructions to me."

Heidegger, looking puzzled, said, "I thought you'd sent him to study in Wutai, sir?"

"Keep out of this, you dolt," Scarlet snapped.

"I'll ask you one more time," the Old Man said to Tseng. "Where is my son?"

Tseng countered with a question of his own: "Why did you think you would find him here, sir?" Though that wasn't the real question. The real question, the only question, was this: would the Old Man be willing to answer, in front of all these people – and if he did, would his answer be the truth?

For a long moment, nobody spoke.

Then, "Because you kidnapped him!" Scarlet declared. "We know everything, so don't try to deny it. Ever since that traitor Veld ran off with his terrorist daughter you've been plotting with him to destroy the Shinra family and pull this company down. If it hadn't been for my forethought, I'd have become your latest victim tonight. But you underestimated me, Turk. I'm neither a naive boy like Rufus nor a sick man like Lazard; I can and will defend myself. We captured the two you sent to kill me. Oh, yes. Before they die, they'll curse the day they met you; I can promise you that."

The Old Man closed his eyes, as if the noise she was making was more than he could bear. "I just want my son," he said. "Tell me where he is."

Tseng hesitated. Heidegger, unable to hold his tongue any longer, added his blustery voice to the fray. "Of course the Wute knows. It's his job to know. Answer your President, Turk. Where's the boy?"

Still Tseng hesitated. Reno wondered if he was thinking about Knox and Roz and what was almost certainly happening to them right now, trying to work out if there was anything he could say that would somehow spare them. Maybe it was time for Reno to intervene: draw the enemy's fire, and buy Tseng a little more thinking time. Knox and Roz might already be beyond saving, but here was the one responsible for their suffering standing just a few feet away from him, and the soldiers had let their guard down; even Viljoen had allowed himself to become distracted by the exchange of words between the Chief Turk, the Directors, and the President. If Reno moved now, his fingers could be squeezing her throat in less than a second, and if they tried to shoot him they'd end up shooting her too, which would be fine by him -

"When you ask my department to keep something safe, we keep it safe, sir," said Tseng. "The Vice-President's well-being is our first concern. As Director Heidegger says, our lives depend on his, and his on ours. There are so many people who would like to harm him." He turned his head to look at Scarlet as he said this, acknowledging her presence for the first time.

The meaning of his look was not lost on her. "After what you've done, you _dare_ to accuse me – "

"Be quiet," said the Old Man. "Rufus is alive, Tseng?"

"As far as I know – "

"You should be certain!" Heidegger interrupted. "You should be double-certain! You're supposed to be guarding him with your life."

"The Turk is lying, sir," Scarlet cried. "It's second nature to them. That traitor Veld taught them all how to say one thing and mean another; everything he says has a double meaning. Didn't you hear how he threatened your son just now, saying that Rufus will only live as long as they live? If your son isn't dead, then they must be holding him hostage. They've been scheming all along to trade Veld's life for his – isn't that so, Turk?"

"I would watch my step, if I were you," Tseng replied. "You know less than you think you do."

His unflappable calm, his refusal to concede that she had the upper hand here, visibly incensed her. Reno wondered if Tseng was winding her up on purpose, trying to goad her into making a mistake. A lemon-sucking expression pursed her mouth. Without warning she darted forward to rake the nails of her right hand down the side of his face. Caught unprepared, his knees buckled and he staggered, eyes watering.

"Director!" The Old Man sounded appalled. "Control yourself."

The soldiers were still holding Tseng's arms; he had no choice but to let the humiliating tears of pain run freely down his cheek and under his collar, mingling with the blood from the deep scratches Scarlet had carved in his face. She smiled. "I know enough to know that that felt good," she said, flicking a piece of skin from her fingernail. "For me, at any rate. How was it for you, Tseng, darling?"

The Old Man said sharply, "Scarlet – " in the same moment that Reno roared "Sadistic _bitch_," and lunged forward. His hands were an inch from her throat when out of nowhere a crackling, crunching sound filled his ears, and the world went blank with pain.

* * *

_This chapter is dedicated to **Clement Rage**,_ _who gave me the idea. _

_I apologise to everyone for the very long delay. This chapter and the two that will soon follow were incredibly difficult to write; I had to keep moving around different scenes, conversations, and pieces of exposition, and I didn't want to start posting until I felt I'd got it right. I know I'm deviating quite a lot from the BC script now, but think of it as missing scenes, not an AU. _

_As always, thanks for reading. _


	62. Vacuum

**Chapter 62: Vacuum**

* * *

Rude was sitting in the bunker's office area, reading the official Shinra News Network updates on the factory bombing. Nobody had called him, but he wasn't alarmed; calls in and out of the bunker were made only in emergencies, and terrorist attacks on company property were becoming so routine they no longer qualified as such. He did not doubt Tseng had the matter well in hand.

The bunker door crashed open and someone fell to the floor, gasping. Rude jumped to his feet. She – it was Hunter – called his name, twice, as if she was in pain. He ran into the sitting area and saw her doubled over on the floor, clutching her stomach, but he couldn't tell if she was injured or had a stitch from running or was trying not to cry, or all three. He knelt beside her.

Rufus's bedroom door opened. He emerged bleary-eyed, still dressed in his blood-stained clothes and walking a little unsteadily; Reno had cast enough Sleep on him to knock out a Behemoth. "What's going on?" he asked.

Hunter couldn't speak. Rude helped her to her feet, and guided her to the nearest sofa. She took a few deep breaths, and dashed the unprofessional tears from her eyes. Then she delivered her report.

Two hours ago – for it had taken her that long to get across town and through the plate undetected; security had been doubled everywhere - she had received a phone call from Rosalind, who had started saying something that didn't make any sense about Knox having killed Scarlet. Before Hunter could ask for clarification, Roz had broken off in mid-sentence to whisper _oh god, they've found me_. A burst of gunfire had immediately followed; then, silence. Hunter had remained on the line, saying, "Roz? Roz? Are you there? Roz?" but when somebody did finally answer, it wasn't Rosalind, but a strange man, saying things so disgusting Hunter refused to repeat them. She had slammed the phone shut on him. With the strange clarity of mind that sometimes comes in moments of intense danger, she had called Tys and Cavour to let them know what had happened, and had then called the Boss, to find out what his orders were. But another man, another stranger, had answered Tseng's phone. He'd started laughing at her -

Rude's phone was in his hand, keying Tseng's number.

"I tried Mink and Veev too," said Hunter, "Their phones are still dead."

Tseng's phone rang just the once before it was picked up. "I'm sorry, but the Wute flea can't take any calls right now," said the smiling voice of Colonel Hugo Viljoen.

"I don't know Cissnei's number," said Hunter. "Do you?"

"Rude, who was that?" asked Rufus. He sounded a little groggy. "Where's Tseng?"

Rude made no reply. He was entering Reno's number.

The door opened and Tys came in. "Oh, thank god," cried Hunter, flinging her arms around his neck.

"Rude," said Rufus, "What's happened to Tseng?"

Colonel Viljoen laughed into Reno's phone. "No better luck this time, I'm afraid."

Rude closed his phone. "They got both of them," he said.

"Both of them?" cried Hunter. "Reno _and_ the Boss?"

Rude didn't reply. Putting his phone down on the table, he rose and went into the kitchen, and stood bending over the sink with his back to the others, arms braced against the counter, shoulders shaking.

On Rufus the news had the opposite effect, sobering him like a slap across the face. Hunter and Tys watched him stride purposefully to the table, pick up Rude's phone, and flip it open with a look in his eyes that said, _I'll soon put a stop to this nonsense_. Halfway through dialing he appeared to change his mind; he paused, finger on the keypad, looking thoughtful, then closed the phone, replaced it on the table, and went into his bedroom, shutting the door behind him. He hadn't spoken a word to Tys and Hunter; for all the notice he'd taken of them, they might as well have not been there.

Hunter ran her hands over Tys' arms and shoulders, patting him again and again, as if to reassure herself that he was still in one piece. "At least you're all right," she said. "I cannot believe this is happening. Where's Two-Guns?"

"We split up. No reason to make it easy for them. He'll be here any minute now."

Thirteen minutes later exactly – Hunter counted every one of them – Cavour came through the door. "They got the Boss," Hunter cried out as soon as she saw him. "And Reno. And Knox and Roz. And nobody knows where Mink and Veev are."

Cavour took a long breath. "Fuck," he said slowly. "This is bad. What about Skeet? He was in the office with Reno – "

Tys pulled out his phone, apparently with the intention of calling Skeeter, but Hunter stopped him. "If his phone rings while he's hiding somewhere…"

"Where's Rude?" asked Cavour

Hunter pointed to the kitchen, where Rude was still standing over the sink, head bowed, his fists clenched on the counter. Cavour looked as if he would have liked to go to him and say something – but what? Turning back to Hunter, he asked, "And the V.P?"

"In his room. Oh god, this is awful. Everything's gone wrong so fast. I never imagined losing the Boss. What if he's dead, Tys? What if they're all dead? What are we going to do? Where will we go? We can't stay here – "

"This place is as safe as anywhere," said Cavour. "The Boss and them – they won't talk. We'll be OK here for a while."

"But we can't stay here forever. We'll run out of food. And how are we going to move the V.P. -"

"Hey, ease up." Tys stroked her ponytail. "You gotta stop assuming the worst, Hun. Remember who we're talking about here. Tseng – Reno – Roz – Knox -" Tys counted them off on his fingers. "How many years experience have they got racked up between them? Dudes like them, they're tougher than cactuers. You just don't get rid of them that easily. So let's not talk any more about them being dead, and let's start thinking instead about how we're gonna rescue them."

"I think the first thing we need to do," Cavour began, and then fell abruptly silent. In that silence they all heard the doorknob turning. Hope sprang up in them; nevertheless, they automatically reached for their weapons, and when a mechanic dressed in Shinra overalls walked into the bunker with his cap pulled down low over his eyes, they didn't hesitate to draw on him. He threw his hands into the air. "Hey!" Skeeter's gold tooth caught a glint of light. "Don't shoot, you guys. It's me."

Hunter laid her shotgun down and fell on his neck with a cry of joy. "Skeet! You're okay! We thought for sure they'd got you."

"They almost did. If it wasn't for Reno they would have."

"What's happened to him? Is he alive?"

"Yes – "

"Did you hear that, Rude?" Tys called out to the kitchen. "Skeeter says Reno's alive."

"But I think he's hurt," Skeeter added. "The Boss and him, they both got taken – "

"Knox and Roz got taken too," said Hunter. "I'm so afraid she's dead, Skeet. I was talking to her on the phone when it happened. She said Knox killed Scarlet –"

"That's what Reno said," Skeet told them, "but Scarlet's not dead. She was right there on our floor with the President. I heard her. She was trying to make Tseng talk."

"About what?" said Rufus from behind them.

None of them had heard him come out of the bedroom. They all turned around and saw him standing behind them, dressed in loose black trousers, a black sweat-shirt, and black running shoes, his hair combed back from his forehead. He looked like he was ready to go somewhere. His face was full of purpose, and there was a fierce concentration in his gaze that was only partly due to the fading after-affects of the sleep materia.

"What did Scarlet want to know?" he asked again.

"She wanted to know about you, sir," Skeeter replied.

"You said my father was there? She was questioning Tseng in front of my father?"

"Yes, but he never told her anything, sir."

"How do you know this? Where were you?"

"Right above their heads, hiding in the air shaft."

Rude had come in from the kitchen. He stood a little apart from the rest of them, back against the wall, arms folded. His mouth had become a grim razor-slash, but his shoulders no longer looked as if they were about to buckle under the weight of a grief too heavy to bear. Rufus glanced at him, and then asked Skeeter, "Where's Tseng now?"

"Him and Reno – Something happened to Reno. I heard him fall. I think he was hit. I think Colonel Viljoen hit him. And then the President ordered them to be taken to the labs, sir."

Cavour hissed through clenched teeth. Hunter blanched and cried, "Bastards! Bastards! I'll fucking _kill_ them," but Tys said, "Hey, ssh, calm down, it could be worse – "

"They're in the _labs_, bozo. How much worse can it get?"

"No, Tys is right," said Rufus. "They're still alive and that's what matters. Skeeter, I think you had better tell us everything. Start at the beginning, and try to keep it brief."

Skeeter did try, but such a story could not be condensed into a few sentences. With many interruptions from Hunter, and several from Rufus asking for clarifications, it took him a while to get to the end of his account. His escape route had involved climbing down a dozen floors using the ladders in the air shafts, then switching to the stairs – a calculated gamble, since most of the workers had gone home and nobody but Reno ever took the stairs by choice anyway. He'd run down about twenty flights, making almost no noise in his crepe-soled shoes, when he heard a voice far above him shouting, "There he is! You, Turk, stop or I'll shoot – " so he'd ducked through the nearest swing door just as the bullets started flying, jumped into an empty service lift, ridden it to the janitorial floor, thrown himself into a garbage chute, was lucky enough to land in a skip that was almost full, floundered his way out, and finally stepped through an unguarded door that led into a locker bay on the third level of the company garage. Here he found a lone mechanic getting changed to go home, overpowered, tied and gagged him, and put on his overalls. He covered his yellow curls with a cap found in one of the lockers, wrapped an oily rag around his neck to hide the tattoo, shoved a spanner in his pocket in case he needed a weapon, and strolled out into the street, whistling as cheerfully as any young man might who had just got off work for the evening.

When he came to the end of his story, he said, "Look, guys – V.P., sir – please don't think I ran off on them because I was worried about my own sorry ass. I had the Chief's materia to think of. If it was up to me I'd have gone straight after them, but Reno said – "

"You have nothing to reproach yourself with," said Rufus. "You followed your orders, and thanks to you we now know exactly where Tseng is. We still have Veld's materia, and we still have _you_. You're more important than any materia. Tseng wouldn't want any of you to risk your lives unnecessarily. You know that's what he'd say if he were here. We're dangerously thin on the ground as it is. We're going to need every Turk we've got."

"But, sir - the _labs_," cried Hunter. "We can't just leave them there."

Rufus gave her a blistering look. "I have no intention of leaving them there."

"But what are we going to do, sir?"

Rufus glanced around the circle of their faces. Like a pack of hounds straining to hear a distant whistle, all four Turks were sitting up now, watching him expectantly. Over against the wall, Rude stood lost in his own thoughts. Rufus turned back to the others.

Tys said, "You've got a plan, V.P., don't you?"

"I did. I've just thought of a better one. But first, I have to ask you something." Rufus looked at each of them in turn. "Do you trust me?"

None of them spoke. They did not need to. Their yearning expressions said it all. _Oh man, we want to trust you, but we gotta know more – _Or, as their Boss might have put it: _Possibly_. _What's the deal?_

"I can't promise you that my plan will work," said Rufus. "And I'm not going to promise you that everything will be all right. Too many of the elements in this situation are beyond our control right now. I can't offer you any guarantees. But this much I can promise: I will get Tseng back for you, or die trying."

Tys, Hunter, Cavour, and Skeeter exchanged glances. A look of silent agreement passed between them. "Okay, V.P., let's hear it," said Cavour, speaking for them all.

.

Reno was out of reach. Tseng couldn't touch him to check his pulse, couldn't find an angle that gave a clear view of his face, couldn't tell if he was still unconscious or merely sleeping. The lab technicians had given him medication to reduce the swelling and counteract any memory loss, but the drip had finished some time ago. How long ago exactly, Tseng wasn't sure; Viljoen had confiscated both his phones, and he had no way of counting the hours. But he felt that Reno ought to have woken up by now, and the fact that Reno hadn't yet stirred so much as a finger was beginning to make him afraid.

At least Reno was still breathing. Tseng leaned forward, pressing his face against the bars that separated him from his subordinate. The cool touch of the metal soothed the pain in his clawed face. He wouldn't have put it past Scarlet to wear poisoned nail varnish…

Except he didn't think she wanted him dead, not yet. Not before she had had a chance to question him. Personally.

Tseng couldn't repress a smile, even though smiling made his wounds smart. She might have outwitted him, to his lasting shame, but the Old Man had outmaneuvered _her._ She had stalked them so long, laid her plans so carefully, so ingeniously, and she had come _this close_ , only to have her prey snatched from her grasp in the very hour of her victory, and from the quarter where she had least expected resistance. She must be stewing in her own rage right now, wondering when her chance was going to come.

Never, if Tseng had anything to do with it. He was determined to escape, and he felt confident that an opportunity would present itself. In fact, he had rarely been more sure of anything in his life. But what if Reno was still unconscious when the time came? What would he do? Put his subordinate over his shoulder and carry him out?

That mental image brought Zack to mind – Zack and his comatose friend, trooper Strife. The two backwater experts. Tseng tried to remember what Strife had looked like. All that came to mind was a shock of chocobo-coloured hair, downcast eyes, and a surly manner. An insignificant boy. Rank and file; cannon fodder. Zack had called him "my friend" within five minutes of making his acquaintance - but then, Zack had called everyone a friend. What had made Strife so important to him that he was willing to risk his own life rather than leave him behind?

If Tseng knew Zack – and he felt that he did – it had probably had very little to do with Strife himself, and everything to do with Angeal.

His thoughts returned to Reno. "Well, my friend," he said, trying the word on for size, "Don't worry. I won't leave you. I'm not going anywhere without you." He spoke in an undertone, not really wanting Reno to hear. Even in sleep the human brain remained capable of registering sounds, and, awake or asleep, Reno had the sharpest ears of anyone Tseng knew. If, when he awoke, he ever remembered that his Boss had given voice to such sentimental impulses, Tseng knew he would never be allowed to live it down.

.

Skeeter thought the Vice-President's plan was pure brilliance. Tys was all gung-ho for it too. Hunter informed them they were idiots. Stop thinking like little boys, she said. The V.P.'s plan was way too complicated. It only needed one thing to go wrong and they'd lose their leverage, and what was maybe their only chance to get the Boss and the others back alive. "I still don't understand why you don't just call your father, sir," she said. "You heard what Skeet said. He only wants to know that you're alive. If you just talked to him - "

"I'm not negotiating with _him_," Rufus cut her short with a look of disgust. "You need to remember who we're dealing with. Of course he would agree to whatever I asked in order to get what he wants, but his promises are worthless. You know as well as I do that my father never keeps to his side of a bargain unless it suits him. And now he's got Scarlet breathing down his neck - and listening in on his phone calls, I assume. No, negotiation is not the way we're going to get Tseng back."

"It's the 'die trying' part I'm not happy about, sir, to be honest," said Cavour.

Their young Vice-President's readiness to spring into action, his absolute certainty that he could not and would not fail, was too reminiscent of their own rookie selves, eager for adventure, determined to impress the Chief and convinced that their new suits alone were enough to stop bullets. Rufus talked about dying like he didn't believe it could happen to him - like his name was a kind of armour.

Well, Rufus replied, wasn't it? Nobody would dare to hurt his father's son, whereas if one of them were taken by the enemy they could expect to be tortured, if not immediately killed. Hunter shook her head. Over-confidence, she reminded him, was the fastest way to screw up a mission. Had he forgotten that Scarlet would like nothing better than to get her hands on his dead body? Rufus countered by repeating what he had said to her twice already: his plan would only work if he carried it out in person. Their target wasn't going to listen to anyone else. That was the bottom line.

The argument could have dragged on for hours, had it not been for their awareness of time bleeding out through their fingers. Tseng and Reno might be dying up there in Hojo's labs. They might already be dead. Nobody voiced this thought aloud, but it was in all their minds. So they yielded to Rufus: to the logic of his argument, and the strength of his will.

The necessary preparations were swiftly made. Hunter and Cavour each gave Rufus one of their guns. It was agreed that Hunter, who out of the five of them could most easily disguise her appearance, would accompany the Vice-President as far as Sector Zero, to show him the way through the Plate. More argument then broke out about what the rest of them should do in the meantime. Cavour thought they should stay put in the bunker. Hunter said the bunker was a death-trap; she wanted them to split the materia among themselves, clear out, and rendezvous at some safe point later. Tys accused her of being over-cautious. Why was she acting like she thought they couldn't trust their fellow Turks? Nobody was going to squeal.

"But I might," Rufus warned them. "If I'm caught, I'll have some explaining to do, and my father's more likely to listen to me if I can prove I'm telling the truth. I might have to tell him about this bunker. In that eventuality, you don't want to be found here. Hunter's right: you should divide up the materia and reconvene at some other safe point that I don't know about. It's better if I know as little possible." He stood up. "I'm going to get ready now. Discuss it amongst yourselves. When you've come to a decision, Hunter, we'll go."

He left them and went into his bedroom, pushing the door shut behind him – but instead of closing, it jammed, and when Rufus turned around to see what the blockage was, he came face to face – or face to chin – with Rude, who had placed one foot in the doorway. "Shouldn't you be taking part in the discussion?" asked Rufus mildly.

Rude's answer was to come inside, forcing Rufus to take a couple of steps backwards. Rude closed the door and stood in front of it, arms folded. Rufus gave him a long look, not wary exactly, but assessing. "Time is of the essence," he said. "If you have something to say, say it."

"I'm not going with them. I'm waiting here. For you."

"If that's what you want, I suppose I can't stop you."

"If you fuck us over," said Rude, "I'll break your neck."

Rufus nodded crisply. "Understood."

"But if you can do this, if you can get them back, then I'm your man. That's what you want, right?"

Rufus took a while to consider the question. At last he said, "I have every respect for you, Rude. Of course I'd like to be able to think I have your loyalty and your trust."

"Hunh," said Rude. "Listen. Reno talks to me, V.P. You know what I mean."

Rufus knew exactly what he meant, and wasted no time pretending otherwise. "I was wondering when we would come to that," he replied. "No doubt you have an opinion on the topic, which you think I would benefit from hearing."

"What's between you and Tseng is none of my business."

"Well, that's a refreshing attitude. What about the others? Do they know?"

Above the sunglasses, Rude's eyebrows rose, as if he was surprised Rufus needed to ask.

"Ah," said Rufus. "Good point. So. Evidently Reno decided to hold his tongue, for once. I'd go so far as to feel grateful, if I thought for one minute that he'd done it for my sake."

Hunter's voice came through from the sitting area: "Mr Rufus, sir, we're done out here."

"It's time to go." Rufus gestured at the door, evidently expecting that now Rude had said his piece, he would leave. Rude did not budge. "There's more?" asked Rufus.

"Tseng trusts you. Normally, I trust Tseng's judgement."

"But…?"

"Reno reckons he's got a blind spot where you're concerned. I hope we're not making a mistake, trusting you."

"Sir?" called Hunter. "Are you ready?"

"To be perfectly blunt," Rufus replied, "I really don't care whether you trust me or not. My world is falling apart and I am not prepared to sit here any longer doing nothing about it. Feel free to think of my motives as entirely selfish ones, if that makes it any easier for you. The fact remains that I am the one who has the best chance of making this plan succeed, and therefore that is what I'm going to do, and if you don't think you can trust me out of your sight then you might as well kill me now, because that's the only way you're going to stop me. I hope that's a straight enough answer for you."

"You better make sure they both come back. Reno's not disposable."

Anger flickered in Rufus's eyes. His chin came up, and his hand too, pushing his hair away from his eyes in that one nervous twitch he couldn't control. "The word you're looking for is 'dispensible'," he said. "But really, do you think I am so callow, so – lacking in perspective, that I would deliberately throw away a Turk of Reno's calibre? I am well aware of his importance to this department, both in terms of our operational capacity and our morale. And even if… Even in the very unlikely event that I was forced to strike some sort of a deal, you know perfectly well Tseng would never abandon him, so what I might choose… doesn't enter into it. The whole question is moot." Rufus paused for breath, and as he did so, a thought came that made him smile. "What's more, if I can get him out of this one, Reno will owe me his life, and he'll _hate_ that."

The snort of laughter that escaped from Rude's lips took them both by surprise.

* * *

_My apologies for the brevity of the chapter. It's really too short to dedicate to anyone, but I'd like **soak**, over at thelifestream, to have it, because of, you know, Rude. _

_The workmen in my house are playing Bohemian Rhapsody on the radio: "If I'm not back again this time tomorrow, carry on, carry on..."_


	63. Rats in a Maze

**CHAPTER 63: RATS IN A MAZE, PART 1  
_In which Tseng expounds a theory, and the dead pay a call upon the living_**

* * *

Reno's nose was the first of his senses to stir, nudging his mind back towards the borders of consciousness, where a swirl of odours hung thickening like a mist. He detected some familiar smells: old blood, heavy and meaty and slightly sweet, and fear; the air was thick with it. But some of the other smells – dry straw, monster dung, bleach - made no sense to him at all.

He became aware that the back of his head was hurting. A lot.

"Are you awake?" Tseng sounded very far away, like he was standing at the other end of a tunnel.

"Uh. Huh. Yeah." Reno's voice echoed in the hollow spaces of his skull. He wondered if Tseng could hear him. Had he spoken loud enough? Had he spoken at all? He must have done, because Tseng replied, "Good," and this time he sounded like he'd come a lot closer.

Reno decided not to open his eyes just yet. He had a feeling the light would hurt when he did. He had a feeling he wasn't going to like what he saw.

"How do you feel?" asked Tseng.

"Like crap." Reno hesitated, not wanting to ask, since the answer couldn't possibly be good, but needing to know all the same. "Boss – where are we?"

Tseng didn't immediately reply. The knot of fear in Reno's belly tightened.

"Our situation," said Tseng, "is not as bad as it might at first appear."

"Oh, fuck," said Reno, and opened his eyes.

The light stabbed into his head, sending a bolt of pain right through to the wound in the back of his skull. As the blinding whiteness cleared, he found himself looking up at a ceiling full of exposed pipework and multi-coloured wires. In the same moment, he realised that the rough prickling of his skin was due to the fact that he was lying on a bale of hay, and his feet were cold… because he wasn't wearing any shoes. When he rolled his eyes sideways he saw iron bars running from floor to ceiling, like an old-fashioned jail cell, or a cage in a circus.

A cage. Not even the regular, human cells. The monster cages. Him in one, Tseng in the next, and in the cage directly opposite him was that _thing_, that creature (that person?) he'd brought back from Cosmo Canyon, staring at him like it had been thinking about nothing else for the last twelve months but crunching up his bones and sucking out their marrow. Where had its other eye gone? Lost? Removed? Sewn shut in some crazy 'experiment'?

"Try to sit up," said Tseng. "Take it slowly."

The initial rush of dizziness soon passed. Gingerly Reno explored the back of his head, measuring the size of the lump with his fingertips. Blood and bits of straw matted his spikes of hair. When his fingers found the open wound, he ground his teeth together so as not to hiss in pain.

"Are you all right?" asked Tseng.

"Unh. It's nothing. Just a little tap on the head."

"You're not slurring your words," Tseng observed. "That's a good sign."

Reno looked down at himself. They'd taken his boots and bootlaces and his goggles and his fucking _socks_. They'd taken his belt. They'd even taken his jacket. Well, if they thought that was all it took to stop him, they didn't know who they were dealing with.

"How long have I been out?" he asked.

"I'm not sure. Several hours. I was worried for a while that you might not come round." Tseng didn't sound worried. He sounded like he had everything under control. "You weren't looking too good when they brought us in here, but they gave you some phoenix down and some ether, to accelerate the healing and counteract any memory loss. It appears to have worked."

"Guess somebody doesn't want me dead just yet, huh?"

"I think you're right," Tseng agreed.

What the hell did he have to be so cheerful about? He looked as bad as Reno felt, with his hair hanging in knotty tangles around his battered face and the front of his shirt smeared with blood – though of course the top button remained neatly fastened. It was weird seeing him like that, all buttoned up without his tie and jacket, or his shoes. Or his holsters. The bastards had taken those beautiful holsters.

"You look like shit, Boss. If you don't mind me saying."

"I've had better days. You're no oil painting yourself right now."

Tseng's clawed cheek was looking painfully hot. The puffiness had almost reached his eye. If they didn't get a potion on those scratches soon he was going to be scarred for life –

_If we live,_ thought Reno, running slap into that mental brick wall.

Just why _were_ they still alive, anyway? What was going to happen to them now? Judging by their current surroundings, the fate that lay in store for them wasn't something anyone with any sense would choose to stick around for. These cages weren't exactly the Shinra hospitality suite.

"Looks like they're planning to give us the special treatment, huh?" Reno fought to hold his voice steady. "You know, Boss, when I swore I'd die in the service of the company, this really wasn't what I had in mind. What d'you reckon Professor Wacko's got lined up for us? Splice our genes with a malboro and see how long it takes us to grow tentacles? Pump our veins full of sahagin blood – "

"Reno, please try not to let your imagination run wild. I told you, things are not as bad as they seem."

Yeah – but just because Tseng _said_ their situation wasn't dire, it didn't mean he actually _believed_ they were going to be okay. They both knew too well the kind of secret shit that went on in this place; they'd both seen the things that had once been human beings, dying, dead, cut up and emptied out and finally heaped onto a trolley and wheeled down to the incinerators under the cover of a white plastic sheet. And now it was going to happen to them. Reno felt blind panic mounting, threatening to take control, constricting his bladder with the urge to urinate. God, he didn't want to piss his pants, not in front of Tseng. He'd rather die.

"If it was just – straight up torture," he said, throat tightening around each word, "I could handle that. I'm trained for that. If you dish it out, you gotta be able to take it, right? But this… I'm telling you right now, Boss, I can't take this. If I see that insane fuck Hojo coming at me with a syringe I'll confess anything they want, I won't be able to stop myself – "

A flare of light came from the cell across the way, heating the side of Reno's face. He turned to look at the creature, sunk down low with its head resting on its front paws, its one good eye watching him from under a raised doggy eyebrow.

"That _thing_," Reno cried. "It's mocking me – "

"Reno, you've got to calm down."

Reno began to pull his shirt over his head. "What are you _doing_?" Tseng exclaimed, no longer sounding quite so sure of himself .

"Getting out of here the only way I know how. I'm really sorry to have to leave you in the lurch like this, Boss, but I'm going to hang myself now – "

"No, you are not."

"One of those ceiling pipes ought to be strong enough – "

"Stop it right now. That's an order."

Tseng used the tone of command he had learnt from Veld, the one that promised, _do what I tell you and everything will be fine_. Almost against his will, Reno's tide of panic began to ebb.

"I need you to do something for me," said Tseng. "Breathe."

Reno obediently took a deep breath, and felt his legs grow steadier. Part of him - the part that really didn't want to die - was grateful for Tseng's intervention; another part of him – the rational part - was desperately hoping he wouldn't live to regret this, and wondering how long they had before the lab technicians came to get them.

"Put your shirt back on," Tseng told him. "I need to talk to you, but first I want you to search your cell for any bugging devices or hidden cameras. Right? Every inch. Be thorough. Do it now. I'm watching you."

As Tseng had no doubt intended, the concentration required for this task had the effect of settling Reno's nerves. It didn't take long to make a sweep of the cage. Aside from the network of wire and pipes overhead, there was nowhere to hide surveillance equipment. Meanwhile, the giant dog-cat thing - what had it called itself? Nanaki? – never once took its eye off Reno the whole time he was moving around. Reno assumed at first that the force powering the creature's stare was hatred, but when his search brought him too close, the animal got to its feet and shuffled into the darkness right at the back of its own cage, putting as much distance as it could between itself and the Turk. Reno realized then that the creature was afraid of him, and he could have laughed out loud at the absurdity of it all, because he knew he'd never looked or felt less fearsome than he did right now

_Hey_, _Whiskers, _he wanted to say, _you know what's funny? You're a kind of a dog, and I'm a kind of a dog, and here we are, both locked in the same kennel. Ironic, huh? Bet you think I got what was coming to me._

The creature could think what it liked; Reno wasn't inclined to believe in karma, or astral retribution, or whatever those Cosmo Canyon hippies called it. That whole karma concept tried to make out like there was some bigger purpose to all the shit that kept on happening, but Reno knew that this was bollocks. As far as he could see, when bad things happened it was just bad luck. Or carelessness.

"Everything's clean," he told Tseng.

"Yes," said Tseng, as if he'd known it would be. "Come over here."

While Reno was searching his cage, Tseng had dragged a bale of hay up to the bars and sat down on it, looking for all the world like he was sitting at his desk in his office, waiting for Reno to come in so they could plan some routine mission. But if twelve years of working with Tseng had taught Reno anything, it was that what the Boss showed on the outside wasn't necessarily what he was feeling on the inside. Tseng made himself appear calm in order to keep everybody else calm. In stormy weather, he was the lightning rod for their confusion and fear. He kept them all grounded, and he did the job so well that everybody assumed it came naturally to him. They took it for granted that nothing could faze their leader or throw him off his stride. It was only recently that Reno had begun to wonder how much effort Tseng spent on keeping up this façade. Had any of them ever seen him one hundred per cent relaxed? Or was Rufus Shinra the only one allowed that privilege?

"Pull up a seat," said Tseng.

Reno pushed his bale of hay over to the bars and sat down.

"I've been thinking," Tseng began. "What are we doing here? I mean, why were we put in here, in the animal cages?"

"They think they're making some clever fucking point."

"Well… possibly. But Scarlet wanted us to be handed over to the army. In fact, from the way she was talking to the Old Man, I got the impression she assumed Viljoen was going to take us into custody. Heidegger seemed to think the same. It was the Old Man who insisted we be brought here – not just to the lab floor, but to these cages specifically. He was very insistent about it. Yet the technicians here weren't expecting us; they appeared to me to be taken completely by surprise. I think that when the Old Man agreed to the raid on our floor, he promised Scarlet the army could have us. Something happened while he was on our floor to make him change his mind."

Tseng was looking meaningfully at Reno, as if he expected his words to produce some kind of _a-hah!_ moment. No light-bulbs were coming on in Reno's sore head. "Like what, Boss?"

"I think that when he came to our floor, Scarlet had convinced him that Rufus was dead. She may even believe it herself. But now… he's not so sure."

Hearing Tseng say Rufus's name out loud like that, so casually, like it didn't mean anything special to him, made Reno feel even more confused. How should he react? Should he speak up? Say, _It's okay, Boss, I know everything; you can drop the act_? But once he opened that can of worms, the fuck only knew where it would take them. Did it even matter now? He and Tseng were unlikely to see the outside of these labs again. And the others -

"They're dead, aren't they?" Reno stared bleakly at Tseng. "Knox. Roz - "

"We don't know what's happened to them," said Tseng firmly. "They may well have escaped."

"Scarlet said – "

"Scarlet is a liar who wants to break our morale."

Reno longed to believe it. But when he remembered how terrified Roz had sounded on the phone, he didn't dare to. She'd said they'd got Knox. No room for doubt there.

Then again, she'd also told him that Knox had killed Scarlet.

"This was a carefully timed operation," said Tseng. "We were very thoroughly set up. The bomb in the materia factory was part of it."

"You think she planted it herself?"

"Is that unlikely?"

"But it was in the staff canteen_. _People were killed. Her own people."

"Production wasn't disrupted," Tseng pointed out.

"Fucking _hell_." Reno dragged his fingers through his hair, wincing when he touched the wound he had, momentarily, forgotten.

Tseng said, "I've always suspected she was the one responsible for spreading the rumours that Rufus is dead. She's known for a long time now that the business trip is just a cover story, but I am pretty certain she doesn't know the truth about Rufus's involvement with Avalanche –"

"How can you be so sure?"

"If she had that kind of knowledge, she would use it. And where would she get the information from? The Turks and the President are the only ones who know. I was afraid for a while that the Old Man might take her into his confidence, but he's too canny to trust her that far. I've noticed before that her influence over him waxes and wanes."

"Kinda surprised Fuhito didn't spill the beans. Rip the company apart from the top down."

"That has always been the thing I've feared most," Tseng agreed. "And the Old Man fears it, too. That's why he had us remove Rufus from the picture. But Rufus's prolonged absence lends credibility to these rumours of his death. Scarlet used our supposed attempt on her life to play on the Old Man's worst fears. You heard what she said. We killed Lazard. We've killed Rufus. We tried to kill her. We're conspiring with Commander Veld against him. She's been pouring that poison into his ear for months now, and tonight he cracked. He thought Rufus was dead. You saw how afraid he was. He would never have brought the army onto our floor if he'd been thinking straight."

"So you're saying Scarlet put the wind up him, he gets in a funk and comes storming onto our floor, find Rufus is missing, and that – puts his mind at rest? I'm not following your logic, Boss."

"We're still alive," Tseng reminded him. "If the Old Man really thought Rufus was dead, he'd have no further use for us."

_Except as lab rats_, thought Reno, but he didn't say it out loud. He couldn't. Tseng was working so hard to find a ray of hope.

"In a moment of weakness he allowed Scarlet to manipulate him," Tseng went on, "And now he's in a dilemma. He can't let us go, not with all the evidence Scarlet has manufactured against us. But he doesn't dare kill us, for fear of reprisals against Rufus. He can't allow the army to interrogate us, because we know too much. Negotiation's equally risky. He wants his son back in one piece, reputation intact. So what can he do?"

Reno thought hard, but drew a blank.

"He had us brought to the labs," said Tseng, "because it was the only alternative to handing us over to the army. But he didn't put us in the cells. Why?"

"I don't know, Boss."

Tseng made a small, exasperated noise. "In the cells, there's surveillance equipment. There's nothing here. Nobody's interested in eavesdropping on animals. Nobody's watching us. The only security camera is the one outside the door monitoring who comes in and out. We can talk freely without being overheard. The Old Man wants us to escape, Reno. He's trying to make it easy for us."

_Easy?_ Oh god, if only. Had Tseng taken a good look around yet? Those iron bars were built to withstand a charging adamantoise, and they were so tightly spaced together a chuse tank wouldn't have been able to slip between them. The mythril padlocks on their cage doors could blunt a dragon's teeth. There were no windows, and the ventilation grill was high up in the wall on the other side of the bars. To break out of here, you'd need materia, or probably dynamite, and they had nothing, no weapons, no _shoes_, not so much as a hairpin to pick the lock.

And yet Tseng sounded like he believed what he was saying.

Maybe he really did. Maybe he needed to hold on to that belief. He had somebody waiting for him. Who was waiting for Reno?

Rude – he'd been on his shift down in the bunker, so if anybody was okay, he was. But what if he didn't know what had happened? What if he tried to come back to the office and walked straight into a trap? Why hadn't Reno called to warn him? How could he have been so thoughtless? _Just lie low, you big bald bastard. Don't do anything stupid, please. I gotta leave somebody behind to miss me when I go. _

And Cissnei, she'd probably be okay, too, if she had the sense to get out of town before her cover was blown. It was only a matter of time before somebody recognised her; she didn't have the kind of face you could easily forget. Which was just as well, since Reno wasn't going to be seeing it again.

He had thought there would be time. Once all this crazy business with Zack and Avalanche and Rufus and the Chief was sorted out, there would be plenty of time, he'd thought, to see her and maybe, finally, work out what it was about her that wouldn't let him go. He'd pictured himself sitting across from her at a table outside the Goblins, just like old times, with a couple of pints of ice-cold Zolom Triple X dripping onto the checked tablecloth, and the two of them talking, catching up. _All those years, eh, Ciss? You won't believe what's been happening while you were gone… _

Why was he such an idiot? He'd been given a whole day in which to find her. The last day of his life, probably. And what had he done with it? Wasted it going after Rufus, like the dumb fuckwit she always said he was. He'd told himself that if she wanted to see him she could come and find him, and if she couldn't be bothered, then he couldn't be bothered either. Stupid, stupid, fucking pride –

From the far end of the row of cages came the sound of a door opening. Reno and Tseng looked up. The heavy door was made of mythril-reinforced steel; it swung inward, revealing the figure of a man in a lab coat silhouetted by the harsh light of the corridor beyond. He shut the door and came forward, moving almost furtively, as if he wasn't quite sure what he was meant to be doing here. His face was on the young side of middle-aged. Behind his glasses, his eyes were brown, and his left cheek bore the small scar of an old burn. He appeared to be empty-handed. No syringes.

Tseng stood up. "I know you," he said.

The scientist halted. Now that Reno came to think of it, his face did look kind of familiar.

"Your name is Gadwell," said Tseng. "Dr Douglas Gadwell."

"I wasn't sure you'd remember me," said Dr Gadwell, beginning to look a little less apprehensive.

"You were a friend of Philip Harper."

"Yes. From college; we were old room-mates."

"Yeah, I remember you," Reno cut in. "You were going to be the best man at their wedding."

Dr Gadwell stepped up to Tseng's cage, wrapping his fingers around the bars. "What's happened to Rosalind?" he asked. "Somebody just told me she was killed in the factory explosion. Is that true?"

"I'm sorry," said Tseng, "I don't know."

"Do you know who would know?"

Reno said, "If you got any friends in the army, ask them."

The scientist's eyes searched Reno's face. "They really worked you over, didn't they? You too, Director," he added, turning back to Tseng. "I saw you when they brought you in. They've posted a guard outside the door. I had to give him some gil, but he let me bring you these – " From the deep pockets of his lab coat he produced two vials of potion and passed them through the bars. "I know it's not much, but…."

"We are very grateful," said Tseng, turning the vial over in his hand. "Thank you."

"You don't need to thank me. I'm doing it for Rosalind. For Phil, really. He was the happiest I ever knew him when he was with her. Phil was a good friend to me. The best. After he died, I made a promise to myself that I'd always keep an eye out for her, for his sake. I suppose that must sound ridiculous to you," he added earnestly. "A geek like me, watching out for a Turk like her."

"Well – " Reno began.

One swift glance from his Boss silenced him. "Of course not," said Tseng. "Roz would be the last person to think that."

"I know. She's a pretty special lady." Dr Gadwell paused. "Director Tseng, can I ask you something? There's a rumour going round that the Turks tried to assassinate Director Scarlet. That's not true, is it?"

"No," said Tseng firmly, "it's not."

"See, that's what I told the other guys. I told them not to believe everything they hear. If the Turks wanted somebody dead, I said, don't you think she'd _be_ dead, instead of walking around making trouble for them?"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," said Reno.

He didn't mean to come across as sarcastic, but Dr Gadwell seemed to take it that way. Letting go of the bars, he stepped back from Tseng's cage. "Is there anything else I can get you?" he asked. "Water? Blankets? Something to eat?"

"Food would be good," said Reno. He didn't have any appetite, but the first rule of every mission was to eat when you could, sleep when you could, and save what you could, because you never knew if you'd get another chance. "And our shoes?"

Dr Gadwell looked doubtful. "I'll see what I can do about the food. I can't help with the shoes, I'm afraid."

_Translation_, thought Reno: _you guys ain't going nowhere. _

.

The hands of Reeve Tuesti's gold wristwatch were approaching two a.m. as he turned the key in the door to his office. He had spent the entire evening making the rounds of his reactors, double-checking security after the attack on the materia factory, and though his body was exhausted, his mind felt too charged-up for sleep. He didn't know which was harder to believe: that Tseng would have ordered Scarlet's assassination, or that, having made up their minds to eliminate her, the Turks would have failed in the attempt. They were finished now, that much was certain. What surprised Reeve was his personal sense of loss. He wasn't even sure he liked any of them much. Tseng was a cold fish – a shark, Reeve supposed. The rest of them were equally amoral, and frighteningly pragmatic, and whenever he got too close to them he found himself sucked into their world of blood and guns and harsh loyalties and sudden death. But there was, nevertheless, something glamorous about them… from a safe distance. The Department of Administrative Research and its photogenic staff were a Shinra institution. The company wouldn't be the same without them - which might be for the better, but could be for the worse, since, to be fair, Reeve had always felt more secure for knowing they were there, hovering in the shadows, protecting him and the company he served, doing their dirty but necessary job. Just as long as they did it far away from him.

He finished unlocking the door, opened it, went in, and put his hand up to switch on the light.

"Leave it," said a man's voice in the shadows.

Reeve froze. His eyes strained to see who had spoken. The room was dim, but not completely dark: a dull mako glow filtered through the tinted windows, and he was able to make out a figure with broad shoulders and curly hair, sitting in his own custom-made ergonomic chair at his own untidy desk, which was scattered with various highly sensitive papers that he'd been pouring over when the factory exploded. Terrorist? Turk? Was Reeve's name on their list too? His mind leapt to the panic button on the wall, eight feet away –

"You are in no danger," said the intruder. "I only want to talk to you. But please, don't move."

A young man, by the sound of it. His voice wasn't that of any Turk Reeve knew, and yet he could have sworn he'd heard it somewhere before. "Who are you?" he demanded, "and how did you get in here?"

The intruder didn't answer straight away. By now Reeve's eyes had grown accustomed to the light: he could see that the youth had thick, dark hair, and was wearing what appeared to be garage mechanic's overalls. The upper part of his face was hidden behind a pair of sunglasses; the lower half, cheeks and chin, looked clean-shaven, or maybe too young to need to shave. The youth's mouth was thin-lipped but shapely, quirked at the corners in a presumptuous smile that was maddeningly familiar. Reeve was positive he knew him. But from where? More angry now than frightened, he took a step forward -

"I don't think you can see," said his visitor, "But I'm holding a gun."

Reeve felt his knees turn to water.

The young man said, "Tseng taught me never to point my gun at anything I don't want dead. My gun isn't pointed at you right now, Reeve, because I don't want to kill you. Far from it; that would defeat my whole purpose. My gun is merely here to convince you that you need to move very slowly and think very carefully. I have a proposition for you, and if you take the time to think it over, I'm sure you'll be interested in my offer. Why don't you sit down?"

Reeve doubted he'd be able to walk as far as the nearest chair without his legs giving way under him. "Who _are_ you?" he said. "Why do I feel as if I know you?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot." The intruder took off his sunglasses; in the half-light Reeve could see only that his eyes were bright and of some pale colour. Then the intruder put his hand to his head and pulled his scalp off. Reeve recoiled in shock, before realizing that of course the dark hair was a wig. Underneath it, the intruder's real hair was fair, thick, fine, and raggedly cut. One long strand had fallen into his eyes. He flipped it back from his brow, a gesture that instantly defined him, while Reeve stared and stared as if he was looking at a ghost – which, in a way, he was.

* * *

_Thanks for reading!_


	64. Rats in a Maze, Part 2

**RATS IN A MAZE: PART 2**

_In which it turns out the Turks are more popular than they thought, and Reno and Tseng do some talking_

* * *

Tseng sat on his bale of hay turning Dr Gadwell's vial of potion over and over in his hand, apparently entranced by the little bubble of air sliding up and down from one end of the tube to the other and back again.

"So what do you reckon?" said Reno, holding up his own vial. "Poison?"

Tseng looked up from under his brows, but made no comment.

"Come on, Boss. Did you think he was just gonna hand us the key and let us walk right out of here? That guy knows what Hojo's got lined up for us. He's a friend of Roz's, so he feels sorry for us. He bribed the guard to bring us this."

Reno could see Tseng was only half-listening. His face had that look it sometimes got when he was wrestling with a really knotty problem: kind of troubled, kind of pissed-off, and kind of remote all at the same time. Like he had something in his head he knew Reno wasn't going to like, and was arming himself in advance against every possible objection.

"If it's meant to be the answer to our problems, then I say it's gotta be poison. Something quick and painless."

"Reno," said Tseng.

_Here it comes… _"Yeah, Boss?"

"If they're planning to interrogate us, we need to be prepared for the worst. In that event, you have my permission – in fact, I'm ordering you to cooperate with them fully. Whatever they want to hear, whatever you need to say in order to survive, say it. You must tell them that you and the others were only following my orders. Pin the blame for everything on me."

"No," said Reno, "I'm not doing that."

Tseng went on as if Reno hadn't spoken, "Just promise me one thing. Scarlet's whole game plan now depends on proving that Rufus is dead and that we killed him. Don't tell her where to find him – or if you're forced to, don't say anything until you're sure the Old Man can hear you too."

"I'm not _doing_ that," Reno repeated, despite the familiar sinking feeling that he was wasting his breath.

"I've just given you an order," Tseng pointed out.

"Fuck that." Reno folded his arms.

Tseng's eyes narrowed. "I am the Head of this Department. I am the one who must ultimately be held responsible for its actions. It's my job to make sure the rest of you don't get dragged down with me. If we can't escape from here, my death is a foregone conclusion; Scarlet won't be satisfied with anything less. There's no reason for you to die too, not if there's a way you could save yourself."

"That's a pretty big if," said Reno, "And anyway, I got some principles of my own, you know. You think I could live with myself if I did what you're asking? We're all in this together. We stand or fall together. We all agreed on that, Tseng. You can't try to cut the rope now."

Tseng opened his mouth to deliver a rebuttal – but then, wonder of wonders, shut it again, and whatever he'd been about to say remained unspoken. Closing his eyes, he slumped forward, resting his bowed head against his knuckles in an attitude of defeat.

_Fucking hell_, marvelled Reno, _did he just __listen__ to me?_

From behind his hair, Tseng said in a low voice, "Do you know what I'm most afraid of?"

Reno wanted to say _nothing_, but he knew that wasn't true. Failure, maybe. No, that wasn't right, either. Tseng disliked failure as much as the next man, but he'd never allowed that to stop him from taking risks.

Tseng said, "Dying like Mozo and Charlie."

_Oh, right – rhetorical question_. _Should have realised._

"Their deaths were pointless," said Tseng, "and to me that makes it seem as if their lives were, ultimately, also meaningless."

Reno couldn't let that pass. "Mozo's death wasn't pointless."

"Oh, I understood the point he was trying to make. We all did, I'm sure. But I don't think he expected to die. He thought Veld wouldn't let it go that far. If he'd known he was going to lose his life, and that Hojo would get Zack anyway, would he have thought it was worth it?"

In his gut Reno knew there was something wrong with Tseng's reasoning. "Nobody can see into the future, Boss."

"Maybe. But we all know that we must die one day; that's the one thing we know for certain. My death isn't far off now. I can feel its breath on my neck. It smells of Scarlet. And to tell you the truth…" Tseng's eyes dropped to the vial in his hand, "I didn't think it would be this hard. The thought of leaving you all like this, with nothing resolved – " His hands clenched around the vial – "It is hard to accept. The one thing that could make it easier would be knowing my death had made a difference for the rest of you. If I could believe that by dying I would increase the likelihood that at least some of you would survive, then that would be worth it, to me."

"But – "

"It's my job to take the bullet for the rest of you. Your job is to survive, by whatever means necessary. You'll be the chief Turk when I'm gone, and it'll be up to you to find a way out of this mess I've got us all into."

All the little hairs on Reno's arms began to stir and rise. Tseng sounded as if he was mentally preparing himself to lay down and die – in fact, he almost sounded as if he'd welcome it. "Bugger that," Reno retorted hoarsely. "Like I'd want your poxy job. All that fucking paperwork."

"I know. I didn't want it either. I'd give my right arm to have the Commander with us now. But he isn't, and somebody has to lead them, Reno."

"I'm not a fucking _leader_."

"Neither was I."

"Oh, for god's sake!" Reno grabbed hold of two of the iron bars. "Where do you come off with this bullshit? Next thing I know you're gonna start telling me you deserve to die or some crap like that, so just don't, okay? Just fucking don't go there."

"We have to talk about this. There was so much the Commander forgot to tell me, I was fumbling in the dark for months after he left. I don't want that to happen to you. There are things you need to know."

"Did you not hear what I just -"

"I went to see Aerith today."

That brought Reno up short. _Fuck_, he thought, _so the V.P. was right._

"I was hoping to persuade her to help us. I thought that if she would agree to give the Old Man information about the Promised Land, he would… be more inclined to overlook some of the recent shortcomings of our department."

"And she said….?"

"She said no."

_So no change there, then. And I bet she was smiling sweetly at you the whole time she was telling you to fuck off and die. _Aloud, Reno said, "She'll come round, Boss. As soon as she hears they've got you, she'll come in and cut some kind of deal."

"I doubt it. But in any case, by the time she finds out it will be too late for me. Maybe that will open her eyes. If you manage to get out of here, Reno, you have to go and talk to her. Make her understand that cooperation is her only hope. I warned her that we wouldn't be able to protect her for much longer, but she wouldn't listen. She was talking about leaving Midgar. You're going to need to keep a close eye on her."

Aerith Gainsborough could rot in hell as far as Reno was concerned. After everything the Boss had done for her –

"I see no way out for her," said Tseng, "She's trapped in a dead end. The President will never accept that he is wrong about the Promised Land, but I'm beginning to question whether it really exists. Logically, it makes no sense. A finite planet cannot contain a limitless resource. It's a physical impossibility."

Then what the fuck had they been wasting their time with her for? The Chief had always talked like he knew for a fact that the Promised Land was real, and the Chief wasn't a man to get his facts wrong. Reno said, "I never pictured it being actually _limitless_. It just needs to be enough."

"Enough for what?"

"I dunno. Fifty years? Thirty? Long enough for us to keep things under control while we figure out what to do next."

Tseng barked a laugh. "We are so far from being in control we can't even stop one small gang of terrorists from walking into the heart of our city and blowing up our homes and our workplaces any time they choose. And they're just the beginning. There will be more groups like Avalanche. An avalanche of Avalanches."

"Do you know what you fuckin' sound like Boss? You sound like the V.P."

Tseng looked down at his hands. "Yes. We need to talk about Rufus, Reno."

Half an hour ago, when Tseng had been elaborating on his optimistic theories about escape, he had pronounced the V.P.'s name like it meant nothing special to him, just a marker for one of the many chess pieces being moved around the board. This time he didn't manage to sound quite so casual. His tone had softened, partly because Rufus's name was full of soft sounds anyway, but mostly because he couldn't seem to help it. He knew at once that he'd given too much away; Reno saw his expression subtly change, and he flicked a quick glance in Reno's direction to assess his reaction. Reno had no change to wipe the look off his face before their eyes met.

It felt like one of those moments suspended in time – like the incident last week at the station café, when Tseng had suddenly turned around and looked at him while he was in the middle of thinking about Cissnei. Tseng had stared at him then like he didn't remember who Reno was; like he'd gone to some place inside his own head so far removed from the world they shared that he could no longer recognise his own trusty second-in-command. It was a place where Reno couldn't follow, and wasn't wanted. Somewhere off-limits.

But not this time. Reno had gone there. He saw that Tseng saw that he knew. A faint flush crept under the skin of Tseng's scratched, bruised face. Reno didn't know what to say. He honestly hadn't expected Tseng to look ashamed of himself. He didn't really want to see it, either.

Tseng got to his feet and walked to the other side of the cage, put both hands flat on the brick wall and leaned his weight against it, head down between his shoulders like he wished he could push right on through and let the bricks swallow him up. Figuring out what to say, probably. Yeah. Awkward would be an understatement.

Nothing disturbed the silence except the sounds of their own breathing and the quiet panting of the creature curled in the shadows at the back of its cage. Then Tseng turned around, and Reno saw in his face that he was going to deny it –

"The army's the key," said Tseng. "Your first objective should be to break up Heidegger's alliance with Scarlet. That shouldn't be too difficult, since she treats him like dirt."

No, not deny it; he wouldn't be that clumsy. He was going to _ignore it_, sidestep round it like that moment of mutual understanding they'd just shared had never taken place.

"Heidegger's not difficult to manage," Tseng went on. "All he wants is for someone to massage his ego. I should have seen it earlier, but I made the same mistake Scarlet's been making of writing him off as nothing more than her sidekick. He's an old soldier; he puts a premium on loyalty and chains of command. If Rufus can show him a little respect, ask his advice from time to time, take an interest in his war stories, that kind of thing, he'll quickly come round. But Rufus has a bad habit of bearing grudges. Sometimes he allows them too much influence over his judgement. You'll need to cure him of that."

"Right. Like he'll listen to me."

"It will be your job to make him listen. You can be sure you won't be telling him anything he doesn't know already. He's very astute, and he's kept himself informed. But – "

"Yeah, Boss, we all know how _clever_ Rufus is."

Tseng frowned. He looked disappointed, as if he thought Reno was displaying a lack of professionalism. And yeah, okay, maybe Reno wasn't being one hundred per cent objective right now, but what the fuck: he'd lived his whole life, or at least all of his life that mattered, side by side with this mystifying Wute bastard, and now here they were, hours or maybe, who knew, only minutes away from an agonizing drawn-out death - and what was Tseng doing? Still straightening his goddamn fucking tie. Metaphorically speaking.

"It will be your job," Tseng informed him, "To set your Vice-President an example by putting aside any grudges you may bear that are interfering with the performance of your duties. Rufus Shinra is the single most important human asset this company possesses. No one else can equal his potential to unite this company behind a single purpose and take it forward into the next generation. It will be your absolute priority to protect him. Without Rufus, the Shinra corporation won't long outlive the Old Man, and if Shinra falls, our own destruction is assured."

_That's supposing there's any of us left by then_. Reno had no idea if Skeeter had managed to escape from the building, or what had happened to Hunter and Tys and Cavour. He could only hope that Rude and Cissnei were okay. But Tseng wasn't worrying about any of them, no - his head was too full of Rufus. And his lecture wasn't finished either – or maybe it was just that, once he got started talking about Rufus, he didn't know how to stop.

"Yes, Rufus is brilliant," Tseng continued. "He has his father's head for business. It's a kind of genius, I suppose. And he's becoming increasingly frustrated by his inability to put his ideas into practice. But he is not always as clever as he thinks he is. His youth, coupled with his inexperience, makes him impatient, and when he gets impatient he takes unnecessarily dangerous risks. He thinks he knows everything, but almost all his knowledge is theoretical. He needs someone practical, someone with experience, to steer him in the right direction and rein him in when he gets ahead of himself. Someone who won't let themselves be intimidated or steamrollered. When I die – "

"Shut up now, will you?" Reno growled.

"Even if we do get out of here, I am not going to live forever. We should have had this talk a long time ago – "

_Hey, it's not like I didn't give you the chance. But you looked me in the eye and you lied to me._

" – After I was shot at Junon. We should have talked then. Or after the Legend died. The writing's been on the wall for a while now. You're going to need Rufus when I'm gone. And – " Tseng's tone grew gentler - "He is going to need you, even if he can't see that right now. I'm trusting you to do what's best for everyone."

It was the tenderness in Tseng's voice that pushed Reno over the edge. "Oh, so now you trust me? That's big of you. That's just dandy. D'you want me to fuck him for you too after you're gone? Is that gonna be another one of my duties too?"

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted – not that he'd said it, because he'd _needed _to say it. He'd have burst if he hadn't. But he wished he'd said it in a more dignified way. For his own sake.

Tseng covered his face with his hands and pressed down hard, like he was so tired of the things he was seeing and thinking that he wanted to push his eyes to the back of his head and crush all the bones of his skull into a little ball. He dragged his hands slowly down his face, pulling his features out of shape and dislodging the crusted scabs of Scarlet's clawmarks. A little smear of blood glistened on the side of his hand.

"I knew you'd find out," he said wearily.

"Yeah. Well. Guess you two must have been talking about me, 'cause he told me the exact same thing."

That got his attention all right. "You've seen him?"

"Yeah. This morning." _Right after I hog-tied my naked partner and knocked him out with the same materia he'd used on me. _

Tseng couldn't conceal his eagerness - but then again, maybe he no longer saw any reason to try. "How was he?"

"Pretty messed-up. Kinda… flattened. You know how somebody is after you drive a truck back and forth over them several times? Like that."

Once again Tseng pressed his hands to his eyes. He took a long breath. Centred himself. "He'll mend."

"Oh yeah, we all mend," said Reno. "Whole world's full of people glued back together, walking around with their invisible cracks. Nice job you did there, Boss. You really took care of him."

Reno didn't know why he was saying this. It wasn't what he'd intended to say. Abruptly he shut his mouth.

"Who else knows?" Tseng wasn't meeting his eyes.

"As far as I know, just Rude."

"You told him."

"No. I was going to, but he'd already figured it out for himself. Mink might know. She's been acting kinda off recently. But she didn't say anything to me."

"Well," said Tseng, "If you've talked to Rufus, then you know – "

"It's finished. Yeah, he said."

"And you're sure nobody else knows?"

"Nobody's said anything to me."

"Well, then. That's good. We can consider the subject closed."

"What?" Reno grabbed the iron bars.

Tseng had already begun to turn away. "I see no need to discuss it any further."

"Oh no you don't. I'm not letting you pull the silent act on this one. I want some answers."

Tseng stopped in mid-motion, frowning. "What did you just say?"

"I said, Boss, that I got some questions for you, and I want some answers."

"I was not aware that I was under any obligation to discuss my personal life with you. Or anyone, for that matter."

"Try telling that to Shinra Senior while he's carving out your gonads with his teaspoon. How thrilled d'you think he's going to be when he finds out all his future generations of little Shinras have been disappearing up his Chief Turk's arse?" Tseng's face contorted with anger; he would have spoken, but Reno wasn't finished. "And don't even get me started on the hypocrisy of it, after the line you took over me and Ciss – "

"I know," Tseng answered hotly. "It was wrong. I admit it. I ended it. It's over. What more do you want?"

"I want to know what the hell you were thinking. Fucking hell, Tseng - you're supposed to be the smart one! Did you ever even stop to think about what the Old Man'll do to you if he ever finds out?"

"Of course I thought about it. I have been thinking about practically nothing else; that was half the problem. I knew from the beginning that it was a mistake."

"But that's what I don't understand. How could you have let it start in the first place? How did it happen? Who made the first move? Was it him? Yeah, of course it must have been. He got so horny after being cooped up for so long that he just jumped you one day, right? – and you didn't fight it because – because somebody had to contain the problem, and you're the boss, right? Can't always be delegating the dirty jobs. You were doing it for us, Boss, weren't you? You know, if you tell me that's how it was, I'll believe you."

Tseng didn't reply. He looked as if he already regretted having said the little he had. But he was no longer avoiding Reno's eyes – maybe because he had nothing left to hide. He was looking straight into them with that long, level, quelling look he'd perfected over years of practice, too controlled to be called a stare, but equally threatening. _Drop it_, the look warned, _or you'll be sorry._

But since when had Reno let that stop him? And anyway, what exactly was Tseng going to do to him if he didn't shut up? Iron bars stood between them. Tseng couldn't touch him.

"I'm just trying to understand what was going through your mind. Explain your reasoning to me. I know you must have had a reason. You always plan everything so carefully. Tell me you did it for the sake of the department. Tell me you did it as payback to make him suffer for all the bullshit he put us through. Tell me it's all part of your master plan to overthrow the board and take control of the company by making him your fucking sex slave, because if you tell me that, man, I swear, I'll believe you, and I'll say Boss, you are a fucking genius."

Tseng's lip curled. It was almost a smile - reluctant, self-deprecating, and painful to see, not only because of the way his damaged mouth twisted, but because it seemed that just thinking about Rufus made him smile even when smiling hurt. "Unfortunately," he said, "I'm no genius."

"Yeah. Well. No shit. You say Rufus is so intelligent, but I dunno… You know what he told me? He thought you'd done it because his Old Man ordered you to. Which makes no sense at all."

"He wasn't thinking straight. He was - upset."

"Huh. That's one word for it. I saw the hole he blew in the wall. His aim ought to be better than that by now."

"He wasn't trying to kill me. He was trying to leave. The gun went off by accident."

"Leave to go where? And why was he trying to leave? Tseng, what the hell did you say to him?"

Tseng's eyes shifted away, found a spot to stare at somewhere beyond Reno's left shoulder. It seemed as if he wasn't going to answer. Reno opened his mouth to speak again, when Tseng suddenly said, "I had to make him understand."

"Understand what?"

"Why it couldn't go on."

"Bit late for that, wasn't it?"

Tseng's eyes returned to Reno's face. He didn't look remotely apologetic. "I don't know what you mean."

"Stop acting so dense. Don't you get it? Rufus _Shinra _isn't somebody you can just drop when the truth dawns that maybe fucking the President's son isn't such a great idea any more. _You_ don't get to decide when it's over. _He_ decides. And as far as he's concerned, it's not over. I know, because I've talked to him."

Tseng closed his eyes. "I wish you hadn't done that."

"I wish I'd done it sooner. I got more truth out of him in five minutes than I've been getting out of you for the last five months. And even now… Tseng, who do you think you're kidding? It's not over. Any fool can see that. You just gotta listen to yourself. He's all you can think about. Forget about the rest of us."

A strangled sound escaped from Tseng's throat. It might have been a laugh.

"Look," said Reno, "I couldn't care less what shit you're into, girls, guys, fucking sahagin, whatever; I'm in no position to point the finger. What I can't get my head around is why it had to be _him_. You must have seen the danger you were in. Why did you let it happen? Why didn't you just walk away while you still could? Go to some bar and pick up some pretty little anonymous blonde kid to take out your frustrations on? It's not like they're hard to find, and all it would have cost you would have been the price of a couple of beers, instead of this – this – "

"Not everyone shares your fondness for cheap fucks," Tseng replied through clenched teeth.

"_What_?" cried Reno, stung. "What kind of answer is that? I don't care if the little shit's got a twenty-four carat diamond-encrusted solid gold _dick_, there's still no justification for what you did. This was so unprofessional of you, Tseng, I just – I got no words."

"Do you think I need _you_ to tell me that?"

"You had no right to risk yourself like that. For _him_. _We_ need you. Did you ever once think of us? Of what it would do to us, knowing you were sleeping with the enemy?"

"Rufus is not your enemy."

"Not _your_ enemy, maybe. 'Kill them all, but not Tseng.' You remember that, huh? You were there. You heard him. I guess it didn't bother you as much as it bothered us."

"That was four years ago."

"Yet somehow it seems like yesterday."

"Because you won't let it go," Tseng fired back. "He was barely sixteen years old when he got involved with Avalanche. If we were all to be judged by the mistakes we made when we were teenagers, what hope would there be for any of us?"

Reno snorted. "And that's coming from the mouth of the man who won't let me forget a single goddamn mistake I ever made."

"Don't start accusing _me_ of being stuck in the past, when you consistently refuse to even admit the possibility that Rufus can change."

"Oh, that's how it is. He's changed now. Sure he has. Sure he has. So just answer me this, Boss. How many times has he tried to get you to kill his father?"

Tseng's face was all the answer Reno needed, and told him more than he wanted to know. Nevertheless, after pausing for a moment to choose his words, Tseng said in a slightly calmer voice, "There has been fault on both sides. Things you know nothing about. You don't understand – "

"I think I understand just fine. You know, you're right - he really is a clever little prick. He's got you sussed, hasn't he? He knows just which buttons to press. God, Tseng!" Reno cried from the depth of his Turk soul, "I never, ever in a million years thought I'd live to see the day when _you, _of all people, would settle for being Rufus Shinra's bitch – "

From the cage across the way came a shock of red light, colouring Tseng's face and deepening the shadows around his eyes. Tseng's arm shot out and grabbed the front of Reno's shirt, yanking him forward. "Keep your voice down," he whispered. "That animal – does it understand what we're saying?"

"Maybe," mumbled Reno. It wasn't easy to talk with his face pressed up against metal bars.

"Hojo told me it was dumb -"

They both heard the sound of the door unlocking. Tseng released Reno, who staggered backwards and sat down hard on his bale of hay. Dr Gadwell came in, pushing what looked like a catering trolley. He shut the door behind him and wheeled the trolley up between the lines of cages until he reached Tseng's cage. At that moment it dawned on Reno that something momentous was about to happen. Dr Gadwell was breathing very fast; he looked frightened, but also purposeful, and so absorbed in what he was doing that he didn't appear to notice the acrimony souring the air between them.

"I've brought the food you asked for," he said. The trolley was laid out as if he were delivering room service: two deep soup bowls covered with stainless steel lids, two folded white napkins, two glasses of water, also lidded, and brittle white plastic cutlery.

"I put materia for you at the bottom of the bowls," said Gadwell. "There was no where else to hide it. This glass – " he indicated the one on his left – "Is chloroform. For the guard. The other one's antidote. I can't do anything about the security camera, but there's no other guards on this floor, so you'll have a couple of minutes. I put two infantrymen's uniforms for you in the ladies' washrooms. There's no surveillance in there. I'm going to open your doors now. Please don't attack me."

With shaking hands he unlocked Tseng's cage, and then went to open Reno's. Tseng made straight for the soup bowls, feeling around between the lumps of carrot and potato until he found a smooth round crystal of what could have been amber. "Enemy Skill," he said, surprised. "Maxxed."

Reno dug his fingers into the other bowl, and pulled out a bright green Time materia, also mastered. Combat-quality materia at this level of magnitude was normally only issued to SOLDIERs in the first and second class. He wiped it on his shirt, while Tseng asked Dr Gadwell, "Who gave you these?"

The anger lingering in his tone made it sound like an accusation. Dr Gadwell turned a little pale. "We keep several full sets in the department. Please don't ask questions – and don't stare at me like that; I'm finding this nerve-wracking enough as it is. Here's a passkey." He set it on the trolley. "It won't work on that door, but there's a manual over-ride on this side. The code is GENIUS. I'm going to need fifteen minutes to get clear of the building. Will you wait?"

Tseng nodded. Dr Gadwell said, "You'd better get back in your cages. I'm going to pretend to lock them. If anyone looks in, you want everything to look normal And listen – that guard out there? He's a decent guy. He's got a family. Please don't hurt him any more than you have to. He's just doing his job."

Tseng stepped back inside his cage, cradling the materia in his hand. "Doctor Gadwell, we are in your debt. If there's ever anything we can do for you, you have only to say the word."

"You can find out what happened to Rosalind," Gadwell replied fiercely. "And if anyone's done anything to hurt her, you can make them pay."

"You got that right," said Reno.

"Then, good luck," said Dr Gadwell, as he hung the open padlock on Tseng's cage door. "And good-bye."

He left. The heavy door swung shut behind him. For a few moments, both Turks were lost for words. Then Tseng, his eyes alight with the glint of victory, turned to Reno and said, in the smug tone of someone who has single-handedly succeeded in putting together a one thousand piece jigsaw puzzle in record time: "What did I tell you?"

"No way," Reno retorted. "Out of all the staff in Hojo's labs, there's like, what, this _one_ guy with a soft spot for Roz, and by some amazing stroke of luck the Old Man just happens to pick on him to be our legendary hero? Seriously, what are the odds?"

"Odds don't come into it. You can be sure he knew about the connection between Roz and our Dr Gadwell. President Shinra never forgets a face, or a name, or a fact. He has a mind like a steel trap."

_Sure he does_, thought Reno, _a steel trap with a couple of screws loose. _ In his prime, it was true, President Shinra's intellect had been sharp enough to cut all challengers down to size, and when Commander Veld was in the right mood he had sometimes liked to tell stories about those early days: business rivals outmaneuvered, enemies thwarted, sensitive diplomatic negotiations delicately sewn up. But in recent years the Old Man's mental faculties had been – unreliable, to say the least. "Seems like half the time, he doesn't even remember where his dick is any more," said Reno.

"He's an old ham. Where do you think Rufus gets it from? Here, you should probably have this," Tseng added, passing the Enemy Skill through the bars to Reno. "You know how to use it better than I do."

It felt like more than that, though. It felt like a peace offering. Some sort of response seemed called for, some equally conciliatory gesture. Reno began, "Tseng…" and then stopped, not knowing how to go on. Words were fucking useless sometimes.

"Let's just concentrate on getting out of here," Tseng replied.

Reno rolled the materia in the palm of his hand. All that compressed energy was making his nerves tingle, all the way up to his funny bone. "Yeah, well – okay," he said. "You can think whatever you want to think, Boss, but I'm not convinced. And don't you go getting all full of yourself. We're not out of the woods yet."

The warning was intended as much for himself as for Tseng. This sudden return of hope, this dizzingly swift reversal of fortune, had thrown him for a loop, and in such a state of mind it would be all too easy to make a stupid, fatal mistake. Holding out the Time materia to Tseng, he said, "You better take this, then," because if he was going to be using Enemy Skill, he would need to give it his total concentration. He'd only ever tried using it a couple of times before, and neither had been what one could call an unqualified success. "What I wouldn't give for a nice, simple Bolt," he sighed, closing his fist around the yellow crystal. A kaleidoscope of images – memories, perhaps, though not his own – wheeled through his mind's eye, and he tried to focus on each on turn, seeking the one for which he felt some affinity. If he could establish a connection between the crystallized memory and his own consciousness, drawing on its power when the need arose would be that much easier. "Fuck, this is difficult," he muttered. "I wish I had my rod – "

The menacing vision of a huge spidery creature, pink as Skeeter's saveloy sausage, flashed before his eyes, accompanied by a surge of power that made his hair stand on end. There was a blinding light, followed by a tremendous, crackling _thud_, and the smell of burning dust filled his nostrils.

"Fuck! Reno!" Tseng shouted behind him. "What the hell are you doing?"

The dazzle faded from Reno's eyes. He looked, and saw that he had fired a charge of electricity straight at the wall of his cage: it had blown the plaster off the brick and left a black scorch mark like the crater of a meteor's impact, two meters wide. Sparks smouldered in the straw; Reno dashed forward to stamp them out before they could burst into flame.

The security door swung open and the guard came in. "What was that noise?" he demanded, walking up the line of cages towards them, rifle in hand. "What's going on in here – "

Tseng cast Slow, and didn't miss. The guard's movements wound down to a dream-like langour, his mouth forming soundless shapes. Only the panic in his eyes showed that he understood what was happening. Tseng shot a glance at Reno, but Reno was already on it. His fingers still smarting from the effects of accidentally casting Trine, he drenched one of the napkins in chloroform and, holding it at arm's length, ran out of his cage and pressed the wet cloth over the guard's face. The guard's struggle was feeble and brief. Together Tseng and Reno dragged his unconscious body into Reno's cage. "One of us should put on his uniform," Reno pointed out. "It should be you, Boss. You're the gunslinger man."

"Good thinking," said Tseng.

He swiftly changed, twisting his hair into a knot and pulling the infantryman's helmet over his head to hide his brow and his eyes. "If it weren't for your fat lip, you could be anyone," said Reno. "Kinda creepy." He glanced across into the creature's cage. It lay crouched against the far wall, teeth bared, ears flattened. Some sense of fair-play stirred in Reno's breast, and he turned to Tseng and asked, "What about him?"

"Who?"

"Him. Whiskers. Bugenhagen's dog."

Tseng was checking the rifle's ammunition. "What about him?"

"We could, you know, bring him."

"We can't burden ourselves with an animal. In any case, he's company property. And we don't have the key to his cage. Come on, let's go. You first. If anyone stops us, I'm taking you for questioning."

At the exit, Reno keyed in the over-ride code, then stood back to let the door swing wide. It had opened about a foot and a half when without warning the electricity failed. The lights dimmed, the door shuddered to a halt, darkness fell. "Power cut?" Reno was laughing from sheer disbelief. "Talk about timing."

"Something must have happened at one of the reactors," said Tseng. "I hope it's not another bomb. Keep going, Reno. The emergency generator will come on in a minute, so let's make the most of this while we can."

"Or maybe I hit a wire when I let off that spell?" Reno suggested, slipping his lean self easily through the narrow gap in the doorway.

"That's also possible." Tseng was having trouble getting through the door. His helmet was too big; it wouldn't fit.

"The security camera's down," Reno announced from the other side of the door.

"Don't _look_ at it," Tseng muttered, wedging his shoulder against the door to push it wider. "Help me here."

"Just leave the helmet."

"If I leave it, this disguise is worthless."

"Hey, Boss, I'm looking out the window. There's power everywhere else. It must have been me."

"You'll be telling me next that you cast that spell deliberately. Now, if you could just manage to stop congratulating yourself on your own incompetence for a moment and _help _me – "

"Something's coming." Reno's voice dropped to little more than a whisper. "It's small. I think it's a robot of some sort. It has glowing eyes. It's moving funny."

"Blast it."

"Och noo!" cried a tinny voice. "I'm a friend! Dinna shoot me!"

"Tseng?" said Reno, "I think I'm hallucinating."

With a loud grunt, Tseng shoved the door open another half-foot and squeezed himself and his helmet through into the corridor, where Reno was standing on guard, his left arm poised to cast the spell, staring at the thing that stood about four metres away, its little white-gloved hands (eerily reminiscent of Director Lazard) raised in the air. "That's a talking toy cat," Reno remarked unnecessarily.

"Reeve?" said Tseng in disbelief.

"No time tae explain now," said the cat. "Soldiers are coming. Follow me."

Tseng looked at Reno. Reno looked at Tseng.

Tseng turned back to the cat. "Director Tuesti, if that's you in there, then I thank you for your concern, but with all due respect I think it's better if we do this our way. Reno – you need the ladies' room. Let's go."

They wheeled to the right. Reno's bare feet moved silently; Tseng's army boots thudded with a heavy tread. The toy cat ran along behind them. Reno glanced at it over his shoulder, noticing how top-heavy it was, how clumsily its limbs moved. It ran as if it was bound to topple over any minute, yet it never did.

"It's following us," he whispered to Tseng.

"It was right about the soldiers," Tseng replied.

From far away, down several twists and turns of the corridor, came the sound of the door to the stairwell being flung open and booted feet thundering onto the floor. Reno, listening hard, counted at least a dozen.

"Get in the crates," said the cat.

"What crates?" said Reno.

"Those crates," said the cat, pointing to a dark corner where a score of large wooden packing crates and barrels, stamped with the Shinra logo, stood higgledy-piggledy, as if they'd been shoved to one side and forgotten. "Damn it!" the cat suddenly exclaimed in a different, deeper voice – Reeve's voice. "Trying to do two things at once here. Why can't anything ever go smoothly? Just get in the crates, Tseng, please."

"That's the first place they'll look."

"No. But be quick. Trust me."

Reno wasn't about to do anything on Reeve's toy cat's say-so, not without approval from Tseng. Tseng, after a moment's hesitation, nodded, though he didn't looked happy about it. Reno at once lifted the lid of the nearest crate, folded himself easily inside, and pulled the lid down on top of his head. Tseng climbed into the crate beside Reno's, but was forced to leave his helmet and his rifle behind. "I don't like this," he said.

"Pipe down," said the cat.

Reno heard a soft thud overhead: the little robot had jumped onto his crate and was fastening the latches, locking him into an absolute, velvety darkness. If he had to stay like this for long, he'd suffocate. He tried to keep his breathing slow and shallow, but it wasn't easy when he could hear the soldiers coming steadily closer. Any moment now they would reach the animal cages, find their unconscious comrade stripped to his underwear, and know that one of the escaped Turks was disguised in an infantryman's uniform. With hindsight, that might not have been such a good idea.

Small feet bounced on Reno's lid. The robot cat was climbing the pile of crates. Reno heard it drop something that sounded like the helmet. It clattered down the crates, then up again, and Reno heard the rattle of the rifle joining the helmet in its dark hiding place. The soldiers' footsteps grew louder still. At least four of them were definitely coming this way. Reno heard the robot cat hit the floor.

The footsteps stopped.

"Dead end," said a soldier. "Let's try the other corridor."

"What about those crates, Sarge?" said another.

"Hey," said a third, "What's this?"

Feet shuffled closer. Reno heard a rustle of clothes and creaking leather. "It's some kid's toy," said the second voice.

"What the hell would a kid being doing on _this_ floor?" said the sergeant.

"Maybe it belongs to one of the eggheads' kids."

"It's kind of cute," said a fourth voice. "My Ellie would love one of these. Look how its arm bends – "

"It's mine," said the real, living, there-in-the-flesh voice of Reeve Tuesti. Reno, curled within the darkness of his crate, swallowed a laugh that was part astonishment, part sheer light-headed relief.

"What's going on?" asked Reeve.

"Director Tuesti, sir! A couple of prisoners have escaped. We think they're still somewhere on this floor. They're armed and very dangerous."

"My goodness," said Reeve. "Not the Turks who tried to kill Director Scarlet?"

"Yes, them, sir. You should leave this vicinity immediately, for your own protection."

"Yes, of course. Straight away," said Reeve. "But first, just let me take what I came for. Polly, bring the cart up. Harpinder, Ryan, get those crates. No, those two – and those two."

"You'll need to let me search them first, sir," said the sergeant.

"I'm afraid that's not possible," Reeve replied without missing a beat. "Their contents are highly classified."

But the sergeant knew his job, and he wasn't backing down so easily. "Before I can let you take those crates, sir, I have to make sure our escaped prisoners are not hiding inside them."

Reeve paused, and Reno, who'd barely been breathing anyway, held his breath completely. Bloody, fucking hell - Tseng had been right, this was a stupid, stupid idea. Still, he had the Enemy Skill materia, and he knew how to use it, sort of; they could always try blasting their way to freedom. But there were only so many times he could cast such a powerful materia before his reserves of mental energy were exhausted, and if more soldiers kept coming –

"I know the Turks have a reputation for cunning," said Reeve, "But I'm sure you will agree that it is physically impossible for any man, even a Turk, to lock a crate from the outside when he is shut inside it. Now, I urgently need these materials for my prototypes, and time, as they say, is money. Interns, load the crates, please."

Reno braced himself. Strong hands took hold of his crate, lifted it, and set it down with a heavy thud onto what he presumed was some form of trolley. A few moments later a second thud announced that Tseng had joined him. Two more crates followed, but they didn't sound nearly as heavy.

"Very well, Director," said the sergeant, deeply unhappy. "I can't stop you, but I'm going to have to report this to my commanding officer."

"I would expect nothing less," Reeve agreed. "Your dedication to duty is commendable. You're a credit to your regiment. Could I have my cat back? Thank you."

The trolley jolted and began to move. Four pairs of feet walked with it: three sets of flat soles and one set of heels. They turned a corner, and another, and then Reeve said quietly, "Polly, you need to visit the ladies' room. If you should happen to find anything there that _doesn't belong_, bring it to the control room on our floor, would you?"

"Yes, sir!" a young girl's voice replied, bright with willingness and adoration. The heels tripped away, and the cart moved on.

Soon they came to the elevator. Reno heard it ping. "I'll take it from here," said Reeve to his interns, as the trolley rolled forward into the lift. "Mr Harpinder, Mr Ryan, good work, and thank you both again for turning out on such short notice. I knew I could depend on you. I'll see you in the office at eight as usual – and remember, mum's the word. "

The doors hissed shut, and the lift began to descend. "My god," murmured Reeve as if to himself, "I am really in this thing up to my neck now."

From inside the other crate came Tseng's muffled voice. "You're taking us to your floor?"

"I was kinda hoping we were going to the secret exit," said Reno.

"What secret exit?" asked Reeve, a new note of excitement in his voice.

"The one I was kinda hoping you'd built into the building," said Reno.

"Oh. Damn." Reeve sighed. "I thought for a moment there you knew of one."

"In another five minutes your office is going to be crawling with security," Tseng pointed out from the other crate.

"I know, I know. Just bear with me. I've never done anything like this before. Ah, here we are."

The lift came to a stop. Pushed by Reeve, the trolley trundled out and along a carpeted corridor. A door opened in front of them, and then closed again behind them. The trolley stopped. Reno heard the sound of latches being snapped open, followed by Tseng grunting as he unfolded himself and stood up. Half a minute later, Reno's own lid was lifted. He shot up like a jack-in-the-box, gulped a mouthful of air, looked around, and saw that they were in the central control room of the Urban Development Floor. Reeve was just reaching up to flick some sort of switch. The robot cat sat propped against the panel by his elbow. It was lifeless now: the light had gone out in its eyes.

"I've turned off the security cameras on this floor," Reeve said. "Hopefully they'll stay off for a while. I don't know how long we've got, so we need to think fast. Is it true you're armed?"

"With materia," Tseng acknowledged.

"What was in the ladies' washroom that was so important?"

"Infantrymen's uniforms. Or so I was told. Reno needs shoes."

"So you have materia, and you had disguises? It seems you hardly needed me, after all."

Reno was surprised. "Weren't they from you?"

"Alas, no." Reeve smiled modestly into his beard. "I didn't plan so far ahead. I'm afraid I've been making this up as I go along."

"I'd never have guessed," said Tseng drily.

"I only sent Cait Sith into the labs to reconnoitre. But when the explosion went off, I knew it wouldn't be long before security came to investigate, so I cut the power to the floor. Cait Sith is equipped with infrared vision, and I thought that if the cameras were down, that would make it easier for you to move about. I had no idea that anyone else was helping you. It seems you have rather a lot of friends, doesn't it? Some of them in quite – high places."

"Yeah, we're dead popular," said Reno.

Tseng cut straight to the point. "Director Tuesti, why are you doing this? I thought you'd had your fill of the way we do business the first time around."

"Let's just say I was given the proverbial offer I couldn't refuse. That's all I'm at liberty to tell you. The individual concerned was very clear on that point. I got the impression he was reserving the right to tell you himself."

Tseng looked at Reno. Reno looked at Tseng.

"Although," Reeve went on, "That doesn't mean I hadn't been wishing I couldn't think of some way to help you. One good turn deserves another, and you did _try_ to kill Scarlet. The only pity is that you failed."

"We didn't try to kill Scarlet," Tseng corrected him, displeased. "I don't know what happened, but whatever it was, I didn't order it. I wouldn't be that stupid."

"But then who – "

A soft rapping on the door caused all three men to fall silent. "Director?" said a girl's voice. "It's me."

Reeve leaned past Tseng and pressed the pad for the door to open. A small infantryman stood there, wearing boots too big for her feet. In her arms she carried a second uniform, rolled up, and a second helmet. A spare pair of boots was slung across her shoulder. Reeve smiled. "Polly, well done. That was clever of you."

"Thank you, sir." The intern pulled off her helmet, releasing an abundance of thick blonde hair that fell in shining waves to her shoulders. Reno grinned appreciatively, but her eyes – large, grey, eager, earnest – were not interested in anyone but her Director. Reeve took the uniform from her and handed it to Reno, who put the socks on, and then started tugging the baggy grey army trousers on over his own suit trousers. Tseng made a curt remark about uncharacteristic modesty, to which Reno replied, "It's not that. I just want to feel like I'm still myself inside this thing, yo."

Polly handed the spare helmet to Tseng. He put it on without a word.

"As I see it," said Reeve, when Reno had tied up his bootlaces and buckled his helmet, "Two courses of action are open to us. All the entrances are being guarded, and I should think my car is being watched as well. So either we hide you somewhere in the building and wait for the hue and cry to die down, or we brazen it out through the front door."

"That's easy," said Tseng. "We leave. Reno, get the girl. Director, you're coming with us."

"Wait – what?" exclaimed Reeve, as Reno grabbed the intern's wrist and twisted it behind her back, causing her to cry out more in surprise than pain. The army knife from the soldier's toolbelt was already in Tseng's hand; he tossed it to Reno, who caught it one handed and pressed its sharp tip against the soft skin under the girl's jaw, all before Reeve could blink. "What are you doing?" he demanded. "Don't hurt her! We're helping you!"

"It's nothing personal," said Tseng. "We need to get out of the building, and you and – what's your name?" he asked the girl.

"P-P-Polly – "

"You and Polly are our tickets out of here. If you do exactly what I tell you, nobody will get hurt. If you try something stupid, Reno will kill her. We're going to take the central lift down to the parking garage. Let's go. You first, Reeve."

As they rounded the bend in the corridor, they saw a squadron of a dozen infantrymen occupying the elevator lobby. There was no time to retreat; one of the soldiers immediately spotted them and alerted his comrades. The squadron leader stepped forward. "You two," he said to Tseng and Reno. "Helmets off. Show your faces."

"Order them not to shoot," Tseng told Reeve. "Make them move away from the lift."

Reeve gave Tseng an angry look, but said what he needed to say. Unwillingly, the soldiers lowered their weapons. One of them, acting on Tseng's instructions relayed through Reeve, summoned the lift. The others took a few steps back. "Tell them to move further away," said Tseng. "Rifles on the ground and hands in the air. And tell that one on the left to stop reaching for his confuse grenade. Unless you don't think that Reno can cut your girl's throat faster than that squaddie can pull a pin."

When the lift came, Reno and the girl went in first, followed by Reeve. Tseng brought up the rear. He pressed the button for the parking garage, and entered the code that would prevent anyone else stopping the lift before it had reached its destination. The lift began to descend. For forty floors nobody spoke, though the intern, squirming in Reno's grip, whimpered fearfully every time his knife brushed her skin. When they had passed the twenty-fifth floor, Reeve finally took a deep breath and said, "This wasn't necessary. You could have asked. We could – "

"It has to look real," said Tseng.

"But you wouldn't – "

"We'll do whatever we have to."

Reeve's fists clenched helplessly. "You could let Polly go, at least. She's done nothing but try to help you."

"And she still is," said Reno, stooping over her so that his breath brushed her ear. "Aren't you, sweetheart?"

"Reeve!" cried the intern. "Please – "

"Look at it this way," said Tseng, "You incriminated yourself pretty badly back there in the labs, helping a couple of high-profile criminals escape, but after this, you'll be in the clear."

Reno grinned. "Yeah, you see, we're doing you a favour."

"Don't talk to me about favours," said Reeve. "That's what got me into this mess. And when you next see Rufus Shinra you can tell him that I won't be so easily drawn into his games another time. The stakes are too high for my taste."

If Reeve had been less caught up in his own anger he might have noticed the look of surprise that passed between the Chief Turk and his second in command. Neither spoke. Another two floors passed by. Then Tseng said, "So it was Rufus. What happened?"

"He broke into my office. I still don't know how. I found him sitting at my desk, the last person I expected to see. He talked me into this, and, like a fool, I agreed. Then he left."

"What did he promise you?"

"Funding. Support for some projects I've been trying to get off the ground for a while now." Reeve hesitated. "And a guarantee of my seat on the Board for life. "

Tseng's face was a perfect blank. "When he left you, where did he go?"

"I should think you know the answer to that better than I. From what he said, I gather you see him fairly regularly. He told me his father had no idea of his whereabouts, and that he wanted to keep it that way. Tseng, what kind of game are you two playing?"

"Hide and seek," said Reno.

Tseng silenced him with a glance. "Listen, Reeve, none of us wants to see this girl get hurt. That's why it's so important that you listen to me carefully and do exactly what I say without asking questions. When we reach the parking garage, we are going to walk together to your car. You will lead the way. Please don't try to run. Reno is holding a mastered materia that is capable of reducing both you and your intern to atoms in seconds, and he and I have nothing left to lose."

"My god. You really _are _a ruthless, heartless bastard," said Reeve, filling his voice with all the contempt he could muster.

"What did you expect?" Tseng replied, sounding mildly surprised.

The lift stopped. The doors opened, revealing the dim lights, the concrete pillars, the low ceilings and the chilly shadows of the Shinra executive car park. "This is it," said Tseng. "Let's go."

They were almost within touching distance of Reeve's sleek black convertible when a voice, amplified through a public address system, boomed across the tarmac: "_Stop right there._"

"Keep moving," said Tseng. "Unlock the car."

Reeve pulled out the key and pressed the remote. In unison the four doors clicked open.

"_Stop, or we'll shoot."_

"Tseng," Reeve pleaded.

"Reno, get in the back with the girl." Reno forced her head down, pushed her in, then climbed in beside her. Reeve put his hand on the driver's door-handle. A shot rang out, thunking into the nearest pillar and scattering white dust over Reeve's pin-striped shoulders. Far too late, Reeve ducked; his reflexes moved at a fraction of the Turks' speed. By the time he had collected his wits, Tseng had snatched the keys from his hand, seated himself at the wheel, and slammed and locked the driver's door.

Another gunshot echoed through the cavernous carpark. This one tore through the car roof, glanced off Reno's helmet, and clipped the girl's shoulder before burying itself in Reeve's immaculate red leather upholstery. "Shit!" cried Reno. He clamped his hand down hard on the girl's wound to stem the rush of blood.

"Hold your fire! Hold your fire!" cried Reeve, frantically waving his arms up and down.

"Oh, god, it hurts, it hurts," groaned the intern.

Tseng turned on the ignition and revved the engine.

"Sssh, babe," said Reno, "It's okay, it was just a little bullet, it just grazed you. You'll be okay."

"For god's sake!" Reeve shouted. "Don't shoot! They have a hostage!"

"Yeah, like they couldn't see that," said Reno. "Come on, heartless bastard, what are you waiting for? Get us out of here."

"I don't want to die," sobbed the intern. "Mum, mum…"

Tseng shifted into first gear and planted his foot to the floor. The car roared out of its parking space, narrowly missing both Reeve and the pillar opposite. Tseng banked so sharply that two of its wheels lost contact with the tarmac for a second, then straightened up and aimed for the exit, where the black and yellow barrier was down.

The shooting, Reno realised, had stopped.

Ahead of them the barrier was looming larger by the second. "Boss," Reno shouted over the thunder of the engine and the intern's moans, "Before we die, I'd just like to report that this has been a really piss-poor escape. One of the worst I've ever been in."

"Organise your own next time," said Tseng through gritted teeth.

Moments before impact, the barrier began to lift. Reeve's car swept under it with less than an inch to spare and went spiraling up the ramp. "Hey, they let us go," Reno shouted.

"Didn't I already say I told you so?" Tseng replied, eyes fixed out the windscreen, his concentration focused on shifting the gears while his feet moved like a pianist's from pedal to pedal, now braking, now accelerating, riding the clutch.

"Nah. It was Reeve. He didn't want you to scratch his car."

"If I live long enough, I'll buy him a new one."

At the top of the ramp they burst out of the garage into the mako effulgence of a Midgar dawn. The security checkpost on the outskirts of Sector 0 went by in a blur of grey, gold and scarlet; Reno thought he caught a glimpse of several gun barrels leveled in their directions, but nobody tried to shoot. Weirder and weirder. Maybe Tseng had been right all along. Goddamned know-it-all.

The streets at this early hour were almost deserted. Tseng hung a hard right, ignoring a red light, then took a left, then right again, before reducing their speed to something a little less suicidal. Glancing over his shoulder, he said, "How's the girl? Does she need a doctor?"

The intern was leaning back against the leather seat, eyes half-closed, panting quietly like a trapped wild animal. Reno checked her wound. It wasn't much more than a deep scratch, and had already almost stopped bleeding. "It's superficial. She'll be okay. I'd give her that potion Roz's scientist friend gave us, but I'm still not convinced it isn't poison."

Abruptly, Tseng braked. Reno lifted his head to look out the window, and saw that they had come into a quiet residential street. "We'll get out here," said Tseng. Reno recognized the neighbourhood. Across the road and up a flight of steps was a small park with a set of swings and a roundabout; if you went across the park, around the corner, up the street, and down another set of steps, you would come to a short tunnel where, set in the wall, was a door that led into the back of the Sector Three sewage maintenance depot. From the depot there were many ways to get inside the plate.

"Hey, Polly?" said Reno. "We're gonna leave you now." She rolled frantic eyes in his direction, and her breathing became more desperately hitched. "Just stay with the car," he told her. "They'll be here soon. Hey, betcha Reeve gives you a raise after this, huh?"

"She'll be all right," said Tseng. "Let's go."

The two Turks quietly closed the car doors and set off across the park at an easy, loping pace. In their infantryman's uniforms and helmets, they could have been any two fresh recruits, out for an early morning jog.

* * *

_Well, that was fun. I had fun. Did you have fun?_

_My apologies for posting such a long chapter. I tried to cut it into smaller sections, but it just didn't work with the single continuous stream of action._

_Once again, as always, thanks to my treasured readers for reading this. _


	65. The Railway to Nowhere

**Chapter 65: The Railway to Nowhere, and What Aviva Found There**

* * *

If we now wind the clock back approximately eighteen hours, to when Tseng was waking from his dream in Aerith's church and Reno, homeward bound, was riding the elevator up to the forty-eighth floor, and if we turn the lens of our attention eastward, across the Midland Sea, we will see that Aviva was at that very moment stepping up to the reception desk of the inn at North Corel. Over her shoulder she carried her sole piece of luggage, a cheap pink plastic backpack she had bought earlier that day in the market of the Sector Five slums. It contained her suit, her knives, her disabled phones and batteries, and her one remaining gun.

She asked for a private room. The innkeeper, a pleasant, nondescript young man, replied that luck was on her side: they had just the one vacancy left. She paid her bill in advance (house rule, he informed her, pointing at the sign on the wall) and was taken through the dormitory and up the stairs to her room, a little concrete box with no windows. Breeze blocks provided the only ventilation. Above her head a ceiling fan was turning very slowly, shaking and rattling as if it might at any moment fall to the floor and curl up its wings and die. It probably wouldn't work at night; another sign behind the front desk had warned of scheduled load shedding between the hours of six p.m. and six a.m. The light and rides of Gold Saucer made such huge demands on the grid that there often wasn't enough electricity left over for the local villages. The inn was prepared for power cuts: a brass coal-oil lamp with a frosted chimney stood on Aviva's bedside table. The innkeeper opened a drawer, took out a box of Shinra Imp brand matches, and showed her how to light and trim the lamp.

_You ought to let the Boss know about this_, her professional self prompted. Coal-oil was very illegal. According to Shinra's Public Information Department, it was a 'dirty' fuel, unhealthy for humans, unfriendly to the environment, and when the company shut down the mines it had banned any further production of coal by-products. Still the demand for the oil remained. On the black market, it was cheaper than mako. The hills around Corel, rich with untapped seams of coal and honeycombed with caves, were the ideal location for an illegal still. Some unscrupulous local enterpreneur must be making a killing.

_I'll call Tseng tomorrow,_ Aviva decided. _I'm busy now._

The innkeeper said he hoped she would be comfortable, and then returned to his desk, leaving her alone in the room. Aviva opened her backpack and pulled out her weapons. She strapped her knives to her chest and her one gun under her armpit, put a jacket on, and went out, locking the flimsy door behind her. "What time is it?" she asked the innkeeper as she passed him. He told her it was four o'clock - tea-time on the plate in Midgar. But Midgar was three hours ahead of Gold Saucer; the sun would have already set on the city. Here there was probably still enough daylight left to walk as far as the reactor and back.

The local people put down what they were doing and stared as she passed by. At first this barely registered with her. Turks were accustomed to hostile glances. Several minutes passed before she remembered that in fact they had no reason to be eyeing her so suspiciously; she wasn't wearing her suit, and her weapons were well-concealed. But her brand-new, shop-bought skirt and jacket and sandals, so unremarkable in Midgar, marked her out in North Corel as somebody with money, a woman of substance travelling on her own and thus by definition a mystery. City people rarely came to North Corel, unless it was to hand out charity. North Corel was not a holiday destination. The people here were grubbers and hucksters, scrap metal scavengers, monster hunters and black market coal miners, all of them working with one aim in view: to scrape together enough money so they could leave.

"Hey," somebody called out to her. She turned, and saw a pug-faced man standing behind a stall built of fruit crates. "Hey, you, wait – "

For one stomach-churning moment she was afraid she had been recognised. But no, he was only curious. "What's a little lady like you doing in a dump like this?"

_Mind your own damned business_. She could have got away with a dusty answer in Midgar or Junon, but in a place like North Corel one man's business was everybody's business. The truth was, she didn't really know what she was doing here. She hadn't chosen North Corel on purpose. All she had done was jump on the first flight out of Midgar, which happened to be heading for Gold Saucer. Her face was well known at the amusement park; she would have risked being recognised if she had stayed there, and so she had just keep moving, putting one foot in front of the other until at last she had come to this broken-down town, the end of the line.

The man was still waiting for her to say something. Improvising on the spot, she told him, "I'm looking for materia."

He grinned, revealing a gap where his front teeth should have been. The missing teeth made him look oddly child-like. "Eh, you've come to the right place. Materia grows like weeds round here. It's about the only thing that does. You a dealer?"

"Me? No." She had answered his question; he should leave her alone now. Couldn't he see she had other things on her mind?

"So you're a collector, then," he decided. "Too bad you've missed the boat. We had the Shinra buyers through last week, and the dealers from Costa snap up most of what the Shinra don't want. But if you can hang on a few days, the boys usually come down from the hills on Saturday. They'll have some fresh pickings for you."

Aviva wasn't really listening. "All right," she said without thinking, as she turned away in the direction of the rope bridge. She wanted nothing right now but to get away from him, from people, from everything -

" "Oi," he called after her, "That's Shinra property out there. Monsters everywhere. You don't want to go over there empty handed. I got all sorts of weapons - Hey miss, miss, come back - "

"Midgar, give me money. Midgar, give me money."

Aviva looked down. A middle-aged woman was sitting on the ground next to an overturned cardboard box on which she had set out her wares, plum tomatoes and red onions arranged in little pyramids of three. She appeared to be almost asleep, head nodding. A small, dusty child was leaning against the woman's shoulder. Yellow grit crusted its eyes. It stretched out its open palm towards Aviva. "Midgar, give me money – "

Aviva dug out a handful of gill, dropped them on the cardboard box, and fled. Mr Pug-face Weapon-Dealer was right about the monsters: on the other side of the bridge she started running into them every ten or fifteen minutes. The little devils had proliferated in the last four years, the way they always did when a reactor started up. Aviva's forward path became a series of swift battles, but she almost preferred it that way. The monsters round here were no match for her knives, and if there was anything more soothing to a broken heart than the killing of vermin that deserved to die, Aviva hadn't discovered it yet.

When she came to the railhead by the switchback bridge, she was surprised to find the signal box unmanned, and no guard mounted. Wouldn't this site be an obvious target for terrorists? Still, it meant there was no one to get in her way, and so she went on over the bridge, noticing that its ties were coming loose in several places: another disaster waiting to happen. On the other side of the river she climbed the hill, crawling the last few metres on her belly over the shifting scree, until she came to the top and looked down to see the reactor complex spread out below her, its steel domes and giant pipes lit from below by the poisonous glow of mako, its aluminium flues shooting plumes of tinted smoke hundreds of metres into the air. Through the solid rock she could feel the rhythm of its pistons rising and falling, turning the dynamos round and round, never faltering, never growing tired.

If it hadn't been for the scorch marks blasted into the cliff walls and the raw edges where the rock had been sheered away, you would never have guessed that four years ago this magnificent feat of human engineering had been subjected to an explosion so violent it had reduced that gleaming reactor to a heap of molten metal. Man rebuilt much more swiftly than nature. She herself, Aviva reflected, bore no outward scars from her ordeal.

She shifted her weight, and the scree gave way beneath her, slowly carrying her a few metres back down the hillside. Not far to her right was the little shaded spot where the two of them had taken refuge from the midday sun. She crawled over to it, turned around, and sat with her back pressed against the rock and her face turned southward. The last time she had sat here, smoke from Corel's cooking stoves had curled above the tarpaper roofs of the mining town. Now, Gold Saucer, that surreal, glittering mushroom-tree, stood hazy on the horizon at the very limit of her vision, coming and going like a mirage.

She could almost believe that if she turned her head just a fraction, he would be sitting there next to her, the tattoo slash vivid on his pale cheekbone, spikes of red hair falling over his brow, his goggles a little askew, the end of his cigarette glowing hotly and his cheeks hollowing as he sucked in deeply and then took the cigarette from his mouth and said, with smoke spilling from his nostrils, _You're all right, kid. You'll do._

Aviva hugged her knees tightly to her chest. She hadn't cried. She wasn't going to cry. Turks didn't cry. Turks _endured. _Crying was the beginning of letting go, and if she let go of him, what would be left of her? She loved him so much. Why couldn't he love her? Why did he have to keep on loving someone who would never love him back? _Such irony_, Charlie would say. And where the hell was Charlie when you needed him? Why couldn't he have been here to talk some sense into her? Why was everything so _stupid_ and badly arranged and _hateful_?

"You'd think Turks would know how to organize their own lives better," she said, to the rocks, to the air, to the invisible Reno beside her. "We're supposed to be the practical ones."

_Hey, we're human too, babe._

That didn't sound right. Reno never called her babe. Half-pint. Squirt. Kid. Runt. Partner. (Partner was good). Not _babe_. Babe was for real women.

In the valley bottom a flock of needle kisses suddenly took flight, wheeling through the darkening sky, their electric green wingtips leaving a trail of sparks in their wake. The naked granite of the mountainside glowed red in the sunset, as if a fire were burning inside the coal hills. As if they were made of molten gold. Why was the world so beautiful, when her heart was in so much pain?

Useless to tell herself he wasn't worth it. Only someone who didn't know him could think that. Yes, he was dishonest, promiscuous, lazy, and cruel – to outsiders. To his fellow Turks, he was loyal to the death. He always got the job done efficiently and with the minimum of fuss. Anyone who made unnecessary work for him, girls who couldn't take a hint, enemies of Shinra: such people could expect no mercy. He had never hesitated to be brutally honest with her when he thought she needed a kick in the pants, but that was partnership, not cruelty. She knew she was his second-favourite partner after Rude. He liked her. He trusted her. He'd jump between her and bullet without thinking twice. So why couldn't he _love_ her? She and Cissnei weren't that different. They were both Turks, both orphans, both rescued from harsh childhoods by the grace of Shinra. Physically, too, they were alike, small and agile, skilled with throwing weapons. But Cissnei was beautiful, and that made all the difference.

Heart-heavy, Aviva bowed her head to her knees and sucked on this bitter truth. And yet, if she was being honest with herself, she knew it wasn't the whole truth. Reno had had plenty of beautiful women, one after another and frequently more than one at the same time, and none of them - aside from Cissnei - had ever managed to hold his interest for long. Aviva had taken comfort from his fickleness, telling herself that _she _was the lucky one. Better to be his partner than his discarded plaything. Watching from the sidelines, she had silently cheered him on. _You show 'em, partner! Slap them down! Go team! Us and them! _She had revelled in the spectacle of their humiliation, those other women. As if they were all Cissnei, every single one of them.

Well, she was being punished for it now.

Cissnei had the unfair advantage of beauty, but that wasn't enough to explain her hold on him. They belonged to each other. You only had to look at them to see that. Their partnership had been an established thing by the time skinny little Veev, green as a gooseberry, arrived on the scene. Maybe if she'd known about Cissnei from the start she wouldn't have let her feelings for him grow wild the way they did; one glance at the other woman would have been enough for Aviva to know she was someone you couldn't compete with. But for the whole of her first year with the Turks she had lived blissfully ignorant of the fact that any such person as Cissnei existed. The very first day Commander Veld brought her into the office - that awful, awful day, which she had tried so hard to pretend had never happened - she had thought she would never, ever be able to look any of them in the face again... But then _he_ had come to her rescue at the reactor (_Hey rookie, didn't anyone ever tell you knives make crappy ranged weapons?)_ and she had been able to return the favour and rescue _him_, and he called her partner for the first time, and his smile of approval had made everything good again. That had been the beginning.

And all that time, while she'd been falling head over heels in love with him because he was so kind, so funny, so patient with her, and because he was, like Cissnei, someone you just couldn't take your eyes off from the moment they walked into a room – all that time he'd been secretly working withthe other woman, dreaming about her, waiting for her to come back to him.

And she had come back, to give him a taste of his own medicine, using him as cruelly as only a Turk could do when she forgot where her loyalties lay. She had been punished for it; the Chief, with whom she was a favourite, had been unable to forgive her. But Reno forgave her. And he was still waiting for her. After all these years and everything she had done to him, he still loved her. He always would; Aviva understood that now. Cissnei was Cissnei. No one else would do.

The dream was over. All hope was lost. Admitting it to herself was the easy part. But what was she going to do with this love she had for him, this shameless, stubborn love that refused to lay down and die? If only it were as easy to stop loving as to give up hoping that your love would ever be returned.

The sun went down, the moon came up, the sky filled with all the stars you could never see in Midgar. Miles away in the distance, fireworks no bigger than the stars burst above Gold Saucer. The night had grown chilly. Corel's air was too dry to hold the day's warmth: each time she exhaled the moisture in her breath formed white clouds in the moonlight. What would happen if she stayed out here all night? Would the good citizens of Corel form a search party? Or would they assume she had been eaten by a monster (_I warned her, but she wouldn't listen; dead set on her own way, she was)_, break into her room and ransack her bag in search of cash or something they could sell? They'd be disappointed to find nothing but her Turk suit –

That thought was enough to get her to her feet. In the same moment, she realised that the light in the sky she had taken for a red and green firework was, in fact, a helicopter moving rapidly toward her, flying low over the terrain. She could hear the whup-whup of its rotors beating the air. Her first thought was that the Boss had sent someone to get her. But that was impossible: Tseng didn't know she was in North Corel. Nobody did. And even if he did know - which, to be honest, wouldn't have entirely surprised her - he couldn't possibly know that she was sitting exactly here, under this one particular outcropping of rock. The helicopter was flying right at her. It must be heading for the reactor. She could tell by the sound of its engines that it was a Gamma-type, a big troop carrier, not one of the smaller Alphas or Betas that the Turks normally used. Either they were changing the guard at the reactor, or they were bringing in reinforcements.

Suddenly she remembered that if the men in the helicopter looked down, they would certainly see her. Her jacket and skirt were dark enough to blend in with the shadows, but her face was as pale as a little moon. She crouched down, burying her face against her knees while the helicopter passed over her head. When the dust had settled, she took a handful of dirt and rubbed it over her cheeks and brow, then crawled up to the top of the hill to see what was happening.

Bathed in the white glare of its security lights, the reactor was seething with activity. She watched the helicopter come in to land. Its tailgate opened and soldiers poured out, at least two platoons' worth. The perimeter gatelocks had been activated, the electric fence switched on. HQ had obviously put out an S-level alert, which meant there must have been another terrorist attack –

Below, to her left, she heard something move.

Aviva froze, holding her breath, the better to listen. The _thing _was inching its way towards her. It tried to move quietly, but it was a large, lumbering, heavy-footed thing, and each step sent loose pebbles rattling downhill.

What kind of monster could be stalking her on foot up this hill? Corioles and needle-kisses didn't walk, they flew. Bombs whizzed through the air like punctured balloons. Whatever it was, any moment now it would realise it had lost any chance of taking her by surprise. Slowly and carefully, Aviva began to reach for her gun. Slowly, slowly, she turned her head. Her own position was precarious: one ill-judged movement, and she'd be slipping and sliding to the bottom of the hill. She needed to make her first shot count. She might not get another.

There was a clatter of shingle and a grunted "ooph" as claws scrabbled for purchase. The creature must have lost its footing. Clutching her gun in both hands, Aviva seized the moment to flip over onto her back, thumb flicking the safety catch even as the landslide of dislodged stones began to carry her downhill.

"Get out of it!" a man's voice shouted.

"Heh," muttered her stalker, standing upright. Against the moon its outline was misshapen, but human.

A bolt of liquid light shot through the air, searing her eyes with its brightness. _Mako gun_, she thought. For one split-second the creature was fully illuminated, and she saw that it was one of Avalanche's Raven. Then the bolt of light made impact, snuffing itself out as it knocked the Raven backwards, and the rolling stones kept rolling, and she kept sliding, sliding, all the way to the bottom of the hill.

Inside the reactor complex a siren began to wail. Someone must have seen the light from the mako gun. Aviva scanned the dark hillside for the one who had fired it.

"Clear off!" the man's voice shouted, high up and to her right. "Get out of here!"

"I can help you!" she shouted back.

Another bolt of deadly light came searing out of the dark to extinguish itself in the dirt about a metre from her feet. "Next time, I won't miss," the voice warned.

Aviva made some rapid calculations. Only mako guns or an elemental materia, preferably fire, could bring a Raven down and ensure that it stayed down, and she had neither. This hill would soon be crawling with infantrymen who _would_ have materia - so, let them deal with the Raven. If they caught her skulking around in the dark so close to the reactor, with no ID on her, and no excuse for being where she shouldn't be, they would take her in for questioning for sure. She couldn't let that happen. Tseng needed to know that Avalanche was on the move again, and after last night's punch-up in the Honeybee she couldn't rely on the army's chain of command to pass that news to him. Her duty was clear: she needed to tell him herself. She needed to get back to North Corel and call him; there was no time to lose.

Reno himself could not have run any faster. Her feet barely touched the ground. Halfway across the railway trestle a tie splintered beneath her weight, but her sheer momentum carried her forward, flying, flying along the tracks, past the railhead, past the boarded-up entrance to the mine shaft, only half a mile now to the suspension bridge –

A shadowy form lay in her path. Aviva was moving too fast to stop. She leapt into the air, twisting round to land on both feet, and turned to look at the thing she had just jumped over: the body of a woman, sprawled motionless across the railway tracks. Aviva knelt beside her and touched her arm. The woman groaned.

"You're alive," said Aviva, thinking, _I have to get her out of here._

The woman moved her hand. Aviva grasped it, feeling at once how hot and dry her skin was, her pulse racing. "Listen to me," she said, keeping her voice low in case anything hostile was lurking close by, "I'm going to help you, okay? But first I need to check you for broken bones. I'll try not to hurt you."

The woman was wearing hiking gear: belted shorts, sturdy boots, a t-shirt and a sleeveless hunting jacket. Gently Aviva ran her hands down the woman's bare legs. They seemed intact. Arms too. No blood, no visible wounds. No weapons, either.

"Shelke?" whispered the woman. Her throat sounded very dry.

"Is that your name?"

"My glasses – "

Aviva looked around, and saw a pair of spectacles glinting in the moonlight just an arm's-reach away. By some miracle she hadn't stepped on them. Blowing the dirt off the lenses, she carefully slid them into place on the woman's nose. The woman looked at her. "Shelke," she said. Then she closed her eyes.

"No, wake up!" Aviva said as loudly as she dared. "You have to get up. Can you stand up?"

"Yes." Laboriously the woman pulled herself into a sitting position, and then stopped, panting for breath.

"It's not safe here," said Aviva. "We need to hurry."

"Leave me."

"I can't do that. You're sick. Let me help you." Bending low, Aviva draped the woman's arm around her neck and heaved her to her feet. This wasn't easy; the woman was taller than she was, and very disoriented. "Shelke?" she said again.

Aviva would gladly be whoever this woman wanted her to be, if that would make her move. "Yes, that's right. It's me, Shelke. Come on, let's go."

"My head hurts..."

"I know. It'll be okay if you come with me. You can lean on me, but you have to walk for yourself. Left foot. Right foot. That's the way..."

The two of them stumbled over the bridge, Aviva half-carrying, half-leading the woman, who moved like someone in a trance. On the outskirts of North Corel they came upon two old men seated at a weathered picnic table under a dead tree, playing a game of chequers by lantern-light, using old beer bottle tops for counters. "Where's the dispensary?" Aviva demanded. "We need a doctor, immediately. This woman is very sick."

One of the old men was bald. He stared at them, sucking his teeth thoughtfully. The other one was toothless. He hawked up phlegm from deep in his chest, spat a gob into the dirt, and said, "This ain't Midgar, girlie. No dispensary here."

_Girlie!_ Aviva bristled. He would never have dared to speak to her like that if she had been wearing her suit. "Surely you can see this woman needs medical attention. There must be a doctor in this town."

"Eh, she just needs to sleep it off," said the bald one.

"My son might sell you a potion," said the toothless one, "If he was here. Which he ain't. He went off to Costa last week to fetch his girl back, and we ain't seen hide nor hair of him since. Fool's errand, if you ask me. Can't expect a pretty little thing like that to waste her life in a shithole like this."

"So he might come back," said the bald one, "Or he might not. Can't say."

"He'll be back when his money runs out," said the wise father who knew his own son.

"Shelke," whispered the woman, "I'm so thirsty…"

The old men cackled with laughter.

"Stop it," ordered Aviva. "If you can't help me, take me to someone who will."

"Now look here, girlie," said the toothless man, all trace of laughter wiped from his face, "You mind your manners. You come breezing in here from god knows where, got no good reason to be here that any of us can see, you head off alone up the tracks like you ain't never heard the word _Shinra_, and then you come back in the dark towing some drunk you sure as hell didn't arrive with - and you expect us to _help you_? D'you think we're crazy? Let's say I did give you a potion for your friend here. How do I know Shinra won't be standing on my doorstep tomorrow morning saying hey, Arnie, we heard you been aiding and abetting terrorists and we can't have that, can we? And no more can they. We don't want no troublemakers here. We got enough problems of our own. So you listen to me, girl. There's a bus to Costa that leaves from the parking lot at the station every afternoon at four. Be on it tomorrow, and take your friend with you. We'll all sleep easier."

_By four o'clock tomorrow_, thought Aviva_, my boss will be here, and you'll be wishing you'd showed some human charity to this woman when you had the chance._

"C'mon," she said, tightening her grip around the woman_'_s waist and pulling her onwards. Eyes followed them from every tent and doorway as they made their way up the path to the inn. The hostility in the air, and the fear, was almost palpable. Aviva more than half expected the innkeeper to ask her to leave, but he merely pursed his lips and told her she'd only paid for a single room; a second guest would cost double. For a moment she toyed with the notion of pulling out her gun and arresting him for highway robbery. But -

"Fine," she snapped, slapping a wad of gil on the counter. "Maybe you can bring me a jug of water with ice cubes, and a towel, and a glass with a straw. And some bedding."

Up in her room, Aviva laid the woman down on the bed and lit the lamp. She took the pillow from under the woman's head, put it at the foot of the bed, unlaced and removed the woman's boots, then gently lifted her feet and placed them on the pillow. Laying the back of her hand against the woman's neck, she confirmed that her temperature was going down. Her pulse had stabilised. She would live.

Having done all she could for now, Aviva stood back to take a good look at her... prisoner, she supposed. She had a strong suspicion that the woman was connected in some way to Avalanche. The old man hadn't recognised her, which meant she was a stranger in these parts, and she had been found trespassing on Shinra property in the very same hour when a Raven was sighted prowling around the reactor. Could that possibly be a coincidence? It seemed unlikely.

But then what about the man who had shot the Raven? He obviously wasn't Avalanche. Monsters hunters regularly trespassed on the perimeter of reactors; the company turned a blind eye to them because of the good job they did keeping the reactors clear of vermin. And monster hunters often carried mako guns. Perhaps this woman was his companion? But then, if the two of them were together, how had she ended up all by herself, collapsed in a heap on the railway tracks, suffering from the effects of prolonged exposure to the sun?

Right now the woman was in no fit state to answer these questions. Aviva would just have to be patient. She didn't want to fall into the trap of assuming too much, even if the assumption seemed justified. Her job was to call Tseng and give him the facts, not to jump to conclusions. When he heard what was going on here he would certainly drop everything and come; he would want to question this woman himself. If anyone could get to the truth, he could.

He would want a physical description. Prisoner's age? Aviva guessed at twenty-five, but she might be older; in this light it was hard to tell. Height? Average. Build? Lean. Distinguishing characteristics? Her face looked as if it didn't smile very often. Her nose was sharp and delicate, her mouth small, bad-tempered, turned down at the corners. She had straight, shoulder-length ginger hair that hadn't been washed in a while, and the kind of pale skin that usually went with such colouring. Her arms, forehead, and nose were all badly sunburnt. Behind the thick lenses, her eyes were grey.

Those dazed eyes wandered around the room until they found Aviva. "Water?" she whispered.

"It's coming."

"Thank you." The woman's eyelids fluttered shut. "You're such a good girl…"

"Don't go to sleep!" Aviva exclaimed. "You need to rehydrate. Talk to me. What's your – " _Name_, Aviva had been about to say. But if she asked for the prisoner's name, the prisoner might realise that Aviva was not this 'Shelke' person, and difficulties might ensue. "What's your favourite band?" she asked, kneeling down as she spoke to reach under the bed for her bag.

The prisoner smiled. "I remember how you used to love the Moon-Moogles..."

"That's a kids' band," said Aviva. Was 'Shelke' a little girl? Had Fuhito stolen this woman's child? Was that the connection?

"You're grown up," said the prisoner. "It's been so long. I forgot..."

"Too long," Aviva agreed, fishing around inside the bag for her phones and batteries. "All this time..."

"Seven years."

She could feel both phones, but only one battery. "Seven years?" she echoed, digging deeper into her bag. "Why did it take so long?"

Oh god, there was a hole in her bag. But how? The bag was brand new.

"I'm sorry. Can you forgive me? I never stopped looking. Shelke, I swear. I never gave up. I looked everywhere for you - "

She was becoming agitated. Aviva had to leave her investigation of the hole in her bag and concentrate on calming her prisoner down. "Sssh," she said, "It's okay. You're here now. You don't have to worry about anything any more. Everything's okay..."

Soothed, the prisoner lay back against the pillows, and Aviva was able to return her attention to the mystery of the missing battery. Holding her bag up to the lamp-light, she saw that a seam had split on the bottom corner. _You get what you pay for,_ she reflected; the bag had only cost thirty-five gil, and because she had been in a hurry she stupidly hadn't checked it over for flaws as thoroughly as she ought to have done when she bought it. The hole hardly seemed big enough to let a battery slip through, but there was no other explanation. The battery was definitely gone, and until she could get another one her PHS was useless to her.

Luckily she still had her cell phone. Aviva clicked its battery into place and thumbed the _On_ key. Nothing happened. She tried again. Still nothing. Thinking she must have put the battery in the wrong way round, Aviva took it out, reversed it, and slotted it back in. Again she turned it on. Again, nothing happened. Maybe there was a loose connection?

Aviva tried the battery this way and that, upside, downside, backwards and forwards, but no matter what she tried, her phone remained dead. She stared at it in disbelief. _Two_ phones, and neither of them working: this had never happened to her before, or to any other Turk either, as far as she knew. She hadn't brought her charger - not that it would have helped, with the power off until morning. She needed to call Tseng _now. _

Someone knocked on the door. It was the innkeeper; he had brought the water and bedding she'd asked for. Aviva went out into the corridor to talk to him, shutting the door so that her prisoner wouldn't overhear. "I need to make a call," she said. "Do you have a payphone?"

"It's broken. Like everything else in this town."

"Can't someone fix it?"

"The engineer's coming over from the reactor next week. He usually gets it to work for a while."

That was ridiculous. Aviva couldn't wait a week. "Could I use your cell phone, then? I'll pay."

"Why would I have a cell phone? It's not like I ever go anywhere."

"Someone in this town must have one. Please. It's urgent."

"I heard Jude Griffon has a cell phone -"

_Thank god!_ "Fine. Just let me give the woman this water, and you can take me to him -"

"That'll be a long walk. He's gone to Costa. His fiancee ran off there to work in a bar." The innkeeper leered. "Lap dancing."

Aviva had just about had enough of this town making difficulties for her. Planting her fists on her hips, she lifted her chin, looked the innkeeper straight in the eyes, and said firmly, "Now listen. My boss will be coming here tomorrow. He's a very important man –

"Oh, right, and who's he then, President Shinra?"

"As a matter of fact – "

_You're handling this all wrong, runt_, said Reno. _Stop confronting these guys. They don't like it. What you gonna do, put your gun to his head and tell him to pull a phone out of his arse? C'mon, you gotta play him. Make him want to help you. Cissnei would have had him eating out of her hand by now -_

"Ah - No, of course he isn't," she said, taking a step back and lowering her gaze to the floor. "Don't be stu - I mean, don't be silly. It's just – it's just - I'm sorry, I hope I didn't sound rude. I'm just so - so nervous. My boss is expecting me to call him. This is the first time he's sent me out to do a job by myself, and if I screw this up I'm afraid he's going to put me back in the secretarial pool and I'll never get another chance. I shouldn't have left my charger behind. What an idiot I am! I just don't know what to do." Making her eyes big and soulful, like Tys when he was trying to placate an angry Hunter, she raised her face to the innkeeper's and said, "What do you think I should do?"

_Better? _she asked.

_Priceless_.

"Well," said the innkeeper. "You know, what we could do is, we could wire your phone up to a car battery and charge it that way."

Aviva hadn't expected quite such a useful suggestion. "You can do that?"

"I can try. Mind you, I'm not promising anything. Our batteries are pretty old. You can't count on getting much of a charge out of them. And reception's patchy. You might have to walk down to the ropeway station, it's better there. Anyway, like I said, we can try. Can't do anything right now, in this light. We'll have a go tomorrow, when we can see what we're doing. Okay?"

It wasn't the solution she wanted, but it was the best she was going to get, so she'd better take it. "All right," she said, thinking she'd make sure to wake him early. "I mean - yes, that's great! Thanks."

The innkeeper smiled and said good night. Tray in hand, she stood with her back to the door, watching him walk away down the stairs._ Hey_, she thought, _that wasn't so hard._

_ Feminine wiles, babe. The one force in nature more powerful than mako._

_ I wish you were here,_ she sighed.

He had nothing to say to that.

* * *

_Dear faithful readers: thank you for being patient with me. And thank you once again for all the reviews, the favourites, the follows, and the support. _

_I have a gut feeling that I have forgotten something in this arc. If you have any unanswered questions about what's going on with Aviva or in the story generally, please don't hesitate to ask, as it may remind me of some point I've overlooked. _

_By the way, even though I know that in-game you can walk straight from the North Corel screen to the ropeway station screen, I have imagined North Corel as being "in reality" about an hour's walk away. I don't think Senor Dio would tolerate such an eyesore on his doorstep. It might put off the tourists._


	66. Up To Our Necks In It

**CHAPTER 66: UP TO OUR NECKS IN IT**

* * *

After abandoning the car with Reeve's injured intern inside it, Tseng and Reno made straight for the little side door to the Sector Three sewage depot. Reno was afraid they might have to fight their way inside the plate, but, as it turned out, the door had been left unguarded. Midgar was riddled with thousands of such entry points: service doors, basement windows, manhole covers, storm drains; the entire Shinra army could not muster enough manpower to post a watch over every single one.

"Stroke of luck," Tseng muttered.

A superstitious chill ran along Reno's spine. He didn't like relying on luck. Luck had a habit of going awol just when you needed her most. Zack had learnt that sorry truth the hard way.

The air inside the depot was thick with the mingled smells of chlorine, mako, and human excrement. Hearing voices, the two Turks quickly veered right into an empty corridor. Reno spotted a door that had been left ajar. They went through it, and found themselves in a storeroom containing several racks of orange coveralls, heavily soiled, presumably waiting to be sent to the cleaners. Reno pointed at the coveralls and then at himself and Tseng in a gesture whose meaning was unmistakable. Tseng raised an eyebrow - _has it really come to this? -_ and then nodded. Reno began unbuckling his infantryman's uniform, but Tseng motioned for him to keep it on. They might well need these army disguises again in the not-so-distant future.

The shapeless rubberised coveralls zipped right up to their chins. The hoods that went with the coveralls were fitted with plastic eyeshields and circular filters for breathing, and covered their heads completely. Reno found a toolbag in which to pack the soldiers' helmets; Tseng slung the toolbag over his shoulder, and Reno tucked the Enemy Skill materia up his right sleeve. Preparations complete, they continued on their way.

The new disguises soon proved their worth. At the far end of the corridor they found a small door that led them out onto a catwalk spanning the Great Cloaca. This huge pipe, ten meters across, was Upper Midgar's central sewer, running diametrically from one side of the plate to the other. After crossing the Cloaca, their route took them straight past pumping station number three, where half a platoon of infantrymen had been deployed to guard against possible terrorist attacks. Reno expected to be asked for identification, but one whiff of the soiled coveralls was all it took for the soldiers to step aside, making a great play of holding their noses as they waved the two supposed sanitary engineers on their way.

Deeper and deeper inside the plate Reno and Tseng kept walking. The adrenaline rush of their escape from the Shinra building had ebbed; they were flagging now. The army boots were heavy and didn't fit well; Reno could feel a blister coming up on his left heel, He was still bitter over the loss of his crepe-soled Turk shoes. Those shoes were custom made to last a lifetime, however long that might be in Turk-years. He'd had the same pair ever since he'd joined; they had molded themselves to the exact shape of his feet, and when he wore them he was able to walk and even run without making a sound.

But these clunky army boots, and the crackling of the waterproof coveralls, created so much noise that even with his sharp ears Reno couldn't tell whether or not they were being followed. Twice at Tseng's nod he peeled off as they turned a corner and shinnied up the nearest set of pipes, no easy task in his bulky layers of disguise, to hang above the corridor for ten minutes or so, waiting to see if anyone was coming after them. When it became clear that no one was, he dropped to the floor and hurried to catch up with Tseng, who had stopped to wait for him around the next bend.

They had been walking in this manner, making slow progress and speaking hardly at all, for perhaps forty minutes, when they heard the sound of voices up ahead, magnified by the funnelling effect of the corridors. Tseng grabbed Reno's elbow and shook his head. As swiftly as possible, walking heel-toe to minimize the noise, they backtracked and took a left down a narrow corridor that turned and turned and turned again, and then opened out into a room with pocket doors in the far wall that pushed back to reveal another, smaller room leading to a further corridor. This small room was filled with the usual clutter: some bags of cement, some wooden crates, and a stack of white melamine chests, on top of which a monster, a young deenglow, was curled up asleep in the nest it had made out of a pile of empty gunny sacks. All around its nest the floor was scattered with rat bones, scraps of fur, and white droppings.

The monster lifted its head when the two Turks came in and blinked drowsily at them. They, unwilling to raise a ruckus, but equally unwilling to retreat, quietly stood their ground. The deenglow flared its nostrils, snaked its head from side to side several times, and then spread its membranous wings and flapped away down the corridor. When it was gone Tseng motioned for the two of them to take cover behind the chests. Here they crouched down, with Reno clutching the Enemy Skill materia, not _too_ tightly, in his hand.

They waited, and waited. They heard nothing. Nobody came. It seemed they were safe. Reno pulled off the sewage worker's hood and gasped, "Just let me _breathe."_

Tseng pulled off his own hood. "Ten minutes," he agreed.

"I'm sweating like a pig in all this gear," Reno whispered. "Man, I'm starving. So thirsty. I'd kill for a cig."

"Can't help you, sorry." Tseng stretched out his legs, leaned back against the wall, and closed his eyes.

"We should have eaten that food Roz's friend brought us."

"Yes, I don't know why we left in such a rush."

"Hey, I never claimed to be an expert with Enemy Skill."

Tseng let his eyebrows speak for him. The point wasn't worth pursuing. Reno sat down, tipped his head back, and closed his eyes also. They remained like this, side by side, breathing quietly, for several minutes, until a new thought occurred to Reno. "Hey, Boss?"

"Mmn?" Tseng replied without opening his eyes.

"Think he's banging her?"

"Who?"

"Reeve and Miss Pretty Polly."

"Undoubtedly."

A wicked alley-cat grin spread across Reno's face. "Executive privilege, huh. You know, Boss, I don't reckon he's ever gonna forgive us for this one."

"Right now," said Tseng, "I think that's the least of our worries."

Reno fell silent again. They sat with their shoulders barely touching, their breath coming slow and even, almost in sync with one another. The smell of the sewage workers' coveralls did not bother them. They had grown used to it. Human shit, monster shit, blood, mako, and metal…

"So…" said Reno, drawing out the vowel. "Rufus, huh?"

This time Tseng did open his eyes, though merely a slit, to give his subordinate a warning sidelong glance.

"Hey. I'm just saying. You thought the Old Man was the one pulling the strings, when it was the V.P. all along."

"Rufus had_ nothing _to do with Gadwell."

Reno didn't see how Tseng could possibly know that for sure. It was clear that he wanted it to be true, though, which seemed kind of odd. Did Tseng really care so much about being right? He wasn't normally petty.

"Well, whatever," said Reno, "That's one off the V.P.'s bucket list, anyway. I'll bet you he had the time of his life last night; he's always wanted to play Turk, and I gotta hand it to him, he made a pretty good fist of it, too. Getting up to the sixty-fourth floor past all that security, breaking into Reeve's office without setting off any alarms, sweet-talking him into busting us out of the labs, and then getting himself out again without getting caught... That's not rookie work. That took some skill."

_And determination_, he mentally added. Something Rufus had never been short of.

"Turning to Reeve for help was a serious lapse of judgement," said Tseng.

He sounded so irritable that Reno was puzzled. "You went to Reeve for help when we were chasing Zack."

"And he refused me, because I had nothing to offer him in return. A lifetime seat on the board!" Tseng spat out the words like they tasted bad. "Funding for his pie-in-the-sky projects! The President's been turning down those proposals for years. They're nothing but a colossal money pit."

"You think he'll tell the Old Man it was Rufus who put him up to it?"

"I don't know. Yes, I expect so. He'll want to exonerate himself. But that's not a bad thing. It will give the President concrete proof that Rufus is alive. What worries me is that Rufus has bound himself with promises to someone who is fundamentally unreliable. Reeve always looks for a way to turn every situation to his own advantage."

"Pfft, he won't expect Rufus to keep those promises. Reeve's been with Shinra a long time. He knows how things work around here."

"I don't give a damn what Reeve expects," Tseng snapped. "_I_ expect Rufus to honour the promises he makes, as far as is humanly possible. In his position, a man's word should be his bond. People have to believe that when he says he'll do something, he'll do it. Otherwise they'll have no respect for him. That's why he has to _think_ before he opens his mouth. I suppose we should count ourselves lucky Reeve didn't ask for a controlling interest while he was at it."

Tseng was right; Reno could see that. All the same, he seemed to be deliberately overlooking the most important factor in the equation. If Rufus hadn't intervened, they'd probably both be dead now. A few concessions and some broken promises seemed like a small price to pay for their lives, and if Rufus was willing to make that deal then Reno wasn't going to argue with him - and he wasn't going to be an ungrateful prick about it, either.

"Yeah, Tuesti's a chancer," he said. "But we always knew that. No one climbs the ladder by standing on principle. I just don't get why it bugs you so much. I kinda thought you'd be - you know, proud."

Tseng gave Reno a look that could have stripped paint. "You and I had the situation under control. We had materia and disguises, and there were other hostages we could have taken. Bringing Reeve into the equation has made everything twice as complicated."

"Okay, so maybe going to Reeve for help wasn't the best idea," Reno conceded, "But beggars can't be choosers. What else was he supposed to do?"

"There was no need for him to _do_ anythng. His interference was reckless and unnecessary."

"Reckless, I'll give you," Reno agreed, "Dunno about unnecessary -"

"It wouldn't have _been_ necessary if you were capable of holding a materia in your hands for longer than fifteen seconds without firing it off at the nearest stationary object."

"Hey, you know, you're the one who gave it to me - "

"I'm not happy with Rude either," Tseng steamed on. "He should have known better than to allow any executive to leave a protected area during a high level security alert, least of all Rufus. Rufus should never have left the bunker, and he should never have gone begging to Reeve. He knows I would have forbidden it."

"Aha," cried Reno triumphantly. "So _that's_ what's pissing you off."

Tseng's face grew darker. "What are you smirking at?"

"Aren't you forgetting something? Rufus is the Vice-President. He doesn't have to take orders from you."

Reno spoke without really thinking. He only meant to pay Tseng back for going on about the trine incident. But when he heard himself saying the words aloud, he realised their true significance. They struck to the heart of the matter.

A strange expression flitted across Tseng's face and was gone before Reno had time to read it. Like pain, but not pain. Well, Reno could _imagine_, but you never wanted to rely too much on that, not with the Boss. He wasn't like other people. Or maybe he was just a closet masochist. That would explain a lot.

"The thing is," said Tseng, a little more calmly, "I'm not sure he fully understands the implications of what he's done. How he's exposed himself. Reeve's no fool. He now knows exactly how much value Rufus sets on us, what he's willing to trade for us."

_Not us, _thought Reno. _You._

Did he want to voice this thought out loud? He wasn't sure. They were on the run from the army, hiding behind a monster's nest in the depths of plate, trying to get back to the bunker before - well, before whatever was going to happen next happened. Not exactly the ideal moment to pick up where their verbal slugfest in the labs had broken off. Should he let it drop for now? Plenty of time later and all that shit - only, would there be? What time was going to be better than this? Once they were back in the bunker it might be days before he got another opportunity to talk to Tseng alone, without Rufus hovering in the background, looking over his shoulder, listening in. Things were happening so fast, who knew what the next twenty-four hours would bring? Better to speak now than have regrets later.

"Boss," he began, "Listen. We both know that if it had been just me up there in the labs, the V.P. wouldn't have stirred one finger to help me. He did it for you - "

"We've already had this conversation," said Tseng in his business voice, beginning to rise to his feet.

Reno put a hand on Tseng's shoulder. The gesture was presumptuous, and possibly not entirely safe, given Tseng's present mood, but - what the hell, he already had all the black eyes one face could carry. "We started it," he said, "But we didn't finish it."

"There's no time for this."

"We gotta make time. Five minutes, Boss, that's all I'm asking."

"You really choose your moments, don't you?" Tseng folded his arms. Reno more than half-expected him to refuse point blank, but instead Tseng remained crouched there, halfway between standing and sitting, his eyes looking right through Reno, looking inward, thinking it over. Then he said, "Maybe it is better if we do this now. All right. Speak."

"Well - first off, I want to say that I was out of order earlier. I said some things I shouldn't have, and I - uh - I'm sorry. Yeah."

Tseng inclined his head, a gracious and apparently instinctive gesture that, for a moment, transformed him into pure Wuteng. "We both let our tempers get the better of us. I was equally in the wrong, and I also apologise."

"Yeah, well, hang on 'cause I'm not done yet. I don't want to start another fight with you, Boss, but I gotta ask you: where do we stand now?"

"You mean you and me?"

"You and me. And you and him." Seeing Tseng's face harden, Reno went on, "I need you to spell it out for me, so there's no more misunderstandings. I have to know where you stand now and where you want to go from here. We got to get this sorted, Boss. If we can't present a united front, our enemies are going to eat us for breakfast."

"I keep telling you, Rufus is not your enemy."

"Yeah, well, that's moot, but I'm not talking about him. I'm talking about the ones who'd be happy to see you _both_ crucified. All they need is half a chance."

"I know that," said Tseng.

"Man, I know you do."

Tseng's anger was tightly wound. He held it in, but the effort showed on his face as he said, "Rufus's escapade last night changes nothing. I don't know why you think it would. Where I stand now is exactly where I stood yesterday. As for where you stand... That's something you must decide for yourself. I cannot blame you if you no longer have confidence in me. Until this present crisis is over I would appreciate it if you kept what you know to yourself, but if that's out of the question - if you feel obliged to inform the others, that's your decision. I am well aware that I have brought this situation on myself."

"Oh, man!" Reno ran his hands through his hair, which, straw-matted and sweat-crusted, was even spikier than usual. "It's not like that. I got no plans to go round shooting my mouth off. How the fuck would that help? We're all in this together. I'm your number two, Boss, which means you got to trust me enough to confide in me so that I can _back you up_, right? Or if you don't trust me, pick somebody else. You're our leader, and I'd follow you to hell and back, but you're not - This is a big hole you've dug for yourself, and you can't get out all on your own, you know what I'm saying?"

"You expect me to backslide the moment I see him, don't you? You think I am that weak."

Reno was pretty sure that this was not what he had said. "No, you got it all wrong. I think you're fucking _nails_, Boss. Harder on yourself than anyone. But... you gonna look me in the eye and swear to me there's no danger?"

"With you monitoring my every movement?" Tseng's moment of black humour flickered and died, and he did not look Reno in the eyes. "My... The history of my... This has been the worst mistake of my career. I fully and openly acknowledge it. But it's finished now. I wish... I didn't intend for it to get so - ugly. I handled it badly. You saw the result. The last thing I would want is to put him through that business a second time. And even if I did - even if I were tempted to have second thoughts... What happened last night, him running off to Reeve, has proven to me that I was right. His - attachment to me makes him vulnerable and impulsive. My job, my - duty, is to help him get over this infatuation. The sooner the better."

_Infatuation?_ thought Reno. _Is that how you think of it? Honestly?_

And what about that other word, 'attachment' - what the hell kind of cold-blooded word was that? A dishonest word; a demeaning word for what Reno had seen in the V.P.'s face. The memory of that stricken look, the blood on his shirt, the despair in his eyes, the way his voice cracked pronouncing Tseng's name… It kept stirring up old emotions in Reno, ones he would rather not bring into this. He couldn't afford to let his feelings get tangled up in theirs. Someone needed to be the practical one here.

"The thing is, Boss," he replied, "We're talking about someone who doesn't know how to take No for an answer – "

_Yeah, right. Not like some of us_. _Hiding inside the plate, licking your wounds, drunk on self-pity. You never once considered going after her. Never once asked the Chief where she'd gone. Not that he would have told you. But you never even tried –_

"He'll have to learn quickly, then," said Tseng. "He's good at that. And Reno - you're wrong when you say that without me he would have left you to die in the labs. That would have been a waste of a good Turk, and he hates seeing anything wasted. He is not what you think - if that _is_ what you truly think. I never know with you. Sometimes I think you deliberately go out of your way to interpret all his actions in the worst possible light."

In the back of his mind Reno was aware that Tseng had shifted the topic of the conversation away from himself. Nevertheless, he could not let this slur pass by unchallenged. "Me?" he exclaimed. "Am I the one who refuses to admit that he saved my life last night? I said he acted like a pro, remember? But one act of redemption doesn't wipe the slate clean. I can't forget what he did. Don't ask me to pretend it never happened. You know what they say: you can train a chocobo to do almost anything but fly. Can't go against nature, Boss. Right now our golden chocobo would jump through hoops of fire to make himself look good in your eyes, but deep down he's the same as he ever was. Today it suited him to save me. Tomorrow? Who the fuck knows? The V.P. will do whatever it takes to promote his own agenda. And don't try to tell me he hasn't got one, because that's bollocks - "

"Of course he has an agenda. If he didn't have an agenda he'd be nothing but a straw in the wind, and I wouldn't - " Abruptly, Tseng fell silent.

Reno wasn't having it. "What wouldn't you?" he demanded.

"I wouldn't be prepared to follow him, if I didn't think he knew where he was going."

_That, _thought Reno_, is not what you stopped yourself from saying. "_With all due respect, Boss," he replied, "you haven't exactly been thinking straight recently."

"You think my objectivity is compromised."

_No shit, Captain Obvious. _"Years ago I warned him not to drive a wedge between us, and that's just what he's gone and done, isn't it? Look at us. Here we are, literally in the shit, holed up in a monster's nest after pulling off the crappiest escape in the history of crap escapes, and what are we arguing about? Him. Yeah, I'd say he's done a pretty good job of coming between us."

"That was never his intention."

"Makes no difference. He's a wrecking ball by nature. Okay, okay - look, I'll meet you halfway. I'll concede that maybe, just maybe, he didn't do it on purpose. Maybe we, us, the trust between us, the department, we're just the collateral damage. But still."

"Still what?"

"Oh, man!" Reno exclaimed. "Why are you making this so bloody difficult? I'm trying to help you, but I can't help you if you're not honest with me, and you can't be honest with me until you stop trying to fool yourself. Stuff Reeve, that's not why you're angry. I know you, Tseng. You get angry when things go out of control, 'cause you think you shouldn't let that happen. Your head's giving the orders, but your heart - " Reno thumped his chest - "Isn't listening, and that's what's making you angry - because the truth is, you don't want it to be over any more than he does, and if you tell me any different you're fucking lying to yourself. I can see it in your eyes, and so can he."

The silence that gathered around them as Reno's words faded had a pressurized quality, an almost-imperceptible drumming in the air. It was the echo of the reactors. It was the muffled wingbeats of the deenglow prowling up and down outside the room, waiting for them to leave. It was the pulse of the blood in their veins.

"You are right," said Tseng, and covered his eyes with his hand.

Reno held his tongue, waiting.

"When a man falls in love with a boy," said Tseng, "nothing good can come of it."

"You still think of him as a boy?"

"Compared to me, yes. He's young; he should be with young people."

"Well, maybe... " As far as Reno could remember, Rufus had never exactly gelled with his peers, not even in his best-dressed-teen-around-town days when his life had seemed to be one long party. "But I wouldn't say _nothing_ good's come of it, Boss. He's not a complete shit any more. You've done that for him. He's been better with you."

"But it can't go on."

"No," said Reno, "It can't."

Tseng didn't reply. Reno watched him struggling with his feelings, and thought how much older he looked - all of a sudden, it seemed. _This is going to be harder for him than it was for me_, Reno realised. Tseng had no Commander Veld breathing down his neck, forcing him to toe the line and do what was best for everyone. He was the leader: he had to make himself do this.

"Reno," said Tseng, "Tell me. Does it ever get any easier?"

"Huh. Don't ask me, Boss. It's way too soon to say."

A reluctant smile touched Tseng's mouth. "I was hoping for a more encouraging answer."

"Just being honest."

"It's been five years. And there's been no shortage of other women."

"But you have to remember that in all these years I haven't seen her or even talked to her once. I reckon it's a psychological thing. If I'd been seeing her and working with her every day for the last five years I'd have got over it by now, but as it is, for me it's like time's stood still since the day she dumped me in Rocket Town."

"You should go see her," said Tseng. "She's at Augusto's. You could go today, once you've cleaned yourself up."

"Maybe."

"You don't want to?"

"I do and I don't."

Seeing her one last time before dying would have been romantic. Seeing her again, and then again and again until it became his new normality -

"I know she'd like to see you," said Tseng.

"Okay, look," said Reno. "Here's the thing. I don't know if I want to see her because I'm not even sure any more if the Ciss I think I remember is the Ciss she really was. Is. Sometimes I wonder if I've built her up in my mind into some ideal of perfection that no real woman can ever live up to. If she could see herself the way I remember her, she'd probably bust a gut laughing. Do I really want to find out that I've spent five years of my life hankering after a figment of my imagination?"

"Surely it's better to know."

Reno shrugged. "You'd think, but I dunno. I don't have that many illusions left. Maybe I should start taking better care of them. Anyway, Boss, stop changing the subject. We were talking about you. My point is that with you it'll be different because - well, because he's always gonna be right there in front of you. If we live, he'll be our President one day. You're gonna have to figure out a way to work together. Hey, you know what's funny?" Only Reno wasn't laughing. "How you and me both just assume he's gone back to the bunker."

"He will be where he knows I can find him."

Reno didn't doubt it. The V.P. would be waiting impatiently for his reward, and probably expecting an apology as well.

"I don't know if working together in the long term is going to be possible now," said Tseng. "Rufus has been living in a dream-world these last few months. It was inevitable, I suppose. He has a lively mind, and he had to fill the vacuum with something. There have been times when I wondered who he thought he was seeing when he looked at me. But his dreams are very... seductive. That's why I let it go on so long. I could not bear to wake him up. I didn't want to lose that vision of myself, even though I'm well aware that it's nothing more than, as you put it, a figment of his imagination. What you said is true, Reno. I am afraid. I am afraid that when he does wake up from his dreams, he won't be able to forgive me for being - less than what he took me for. But what's worse, I'm afraid that he'll be ashamed."

Before Reno could reply, something moved in the corridor. Tseng's hand instantly leapt to the place where his gun should have been, while Reno unthinkingly shot out his arm to release the rod, only to have a ball of yellow materia roll into his hand instead.

"It's that monster," Tseng whispered.

The young deenglow flew in through the doorway, carrying a rat in its mouth. The rat was twitching, not quite dead. When the deenglow saw the two Turks it stopped and hovered, fretful wingbeats slapping the air, and hissed at them around its mouthful of rat before turning away to retreat the same way it had come.

Tseng's hand fell to his thigh. "We need to get moving," he said, sounding like it was the last thing he wanted to do.

"Tseng - "

"No," Tseng replied, "There's nothing more to say. You understand where I stand now. I will do what needs to be done."

Reno wanted to say _I'm here for you_, but he couldn't: it would sound too girly, and Tseng might laugh. "Whatever it takes, you know you can rely on me, Boss."

"We can't allow ourselves to be distracted. All our efforts right now should be concentrated on finding Knox and Roz, they're our priority. And Felicia's materia, someone will have to go and get it - "

"Taken care of."

"What do you mean?"

"We got the Chief's materia out. Skeet took 'em. I stayed behind to cover for him."

Tseng's tired features relaxed a little. "Good work, Reno. I should have known you'd keep your head. That is, up until the moment you tried to rip Scarlet's throat out with your bare hands. Viljoen meant to kill you, I could see it in his face. I suppose nobody warned him about your thick skull."

Reno grinned. "Yeah, numbskull, that's me. Guess we won't be running any more missions for Shinra anytime soon, huh? Still, look on the bright side. We got all the time we need now to get Knox and Roz back and find the Chief." Reno hesitated. "Or... Don't laugh, but I keep thinking he'll come to us. When we need him badly enough."

That made Tseng smile. "Then he'd better hurry."

"Maybe he's hiding somewhere, keeping an eye on us. Maybe he's watching us right now. Seeing how we handle things. Writing up our assessments. Maybe all this is just one big simulation. That'd be funny, huh? Tseng, can I ask you something?"

"You need my permission now?"

"I'm just flagging that you might not like this. Up in the labs, I asked you how many times Rufus has tried to get you to kill his old man. You didn't answer, but you didn't need to. Anyway, the thing is – don't bite my head off – I'm just wondering if you ever considered it."

"Yes. More than once."

"So what's stopping you?"

"Rufus needs him," said Tseng.

"Hunh. That's true, I guess. It must really stick in his craw, though, considering he'd like nothing better than to watch the old rooster roasting slowly over an open fire."

Tseng gave Reno a look that was almost amused. "Don't let him fool you. Rufus doesn't want his father dead."

Reno laughed. "Come on, Boss, you don't seriously expect me to believe that. I don't think even _you_ believe that."

"What's the point of putting on a show, if your audience isn't there to see it?"

Well, that was one way of looking at it, Reno supposed. He'd never heard before of a son thinking that conspiring to kill his dad would be a good way to make the old geezer proud of him, but then again, the Shinras weren't exactly a normal family - and anyway, what did Reno know about fathers, or sons, for that matter? It wasn't like he'd had a normal family either. He barely remembered his real father. His step-dad had been a decent bloke, letting Reno go on living with him after his mum died, teaching him how to fix things – radios, cameras, TVs, those little Shinra security saucers - and giving him work in the repair shop to keep his hands out of mischief. Yeah, fat chance. Dad had been willing to put up with a lot, but even he couldn't turn a blind eye when his red-headed stepchild started fencing Shinra rip-offs through the shop, and so, after numerous warnings, which Reno had stopped caring about or even listening to, Dad had finally told him to sling his hook, and threw him out into the street.

He was then thirteen and a half years old. A crew of two-bit gangsters who knew him by reputation immediately snapped him up: they liked him because he was fast enough not to get caught, and because he could put any broken thing back together and make it work. These guys weren't even Corneo's hangers-on, just hangers-on wannabes, but that was the kind of detail you only saw once you'd gained the Plate's perspective. Thirteen year old Reno thought they were pretty cool. They told him that a real man wouldn't let some old shopkeeper who wasn't even his own kin push him around. A real man would get revenge, and his friends would help him. That night they broke into Dad's shop and took away everything they could carry, while Reno set fire to the rest. He'd felt bad about it, but he could live with that. What he couldn't do was allow someone to disrespect him and get away with it. He wouldn't have lasted five minutes on the streets if the other guys thought he was a pussy.

Tseng knew this story, of course. All these things were in his file.

It would have served him right if Dad had got a posse together and come after him with a nail bat. But Dad wasn't that kind of man. Then after Reno got his job with the department and moved up in the world, and was earning more money in a week than Dad used to make in a year, he could afford to have a conscience, and it started pricking him. He began sending Dad a cut of his wages every month. He would have understood if the money had been thrown back in his face, but it seemed Dad needed it. No word of thanks, but Reno didn't expect thanks, and didn't want it either. He just wanted to balance the books. He never saw his step-father again. Dad died the year he was on secondment in Mideel with Cissnei.

Tseng said, "We need to decide what to do about Rufus. Should we send him back to the Old Man, or keep him with us?"

"What do you want to do, Boss?"

"All else being equal, I'd prefer to get Rufus out of the bunker as fast as possible, for obvious reasons. But looking at it objectively, I'm not sure we can afford to let him go yet. His father knows now that Rufus is alive. That puts us in a stronger position. My hope is that the President is shielding Knox and Roz in the same way that he protected us. If we let him have Rufus, he'll no longer have a reason to protect them, and we'd have nothing left to bargain with."

And Rufus would not want to go. He was capable of being very difficult, if they tried to force him against his will. But Tseng didn't need Reno to tell him that.

Tseng said, "Right now, the building's too dangerous for him. We're PNG. Who's going to protect him? Reeve? Don't make me laugh. The army? They're on Scarlet's side. And we can't overlook the danger Avalanche poses. Until Fuhito's eliminated, Rufus remains vulnerable to blackmail and exposure. The bottom line is this: We lose nothing if we keep him, but we risk losing everything if we let him go."

_We risk losing our focus_, thought Reno. But the arguments in favour of keeping him were too strong. "Then I guess we better hang on to him for now."

The strange expression Reno had noticed earlier, fleeting, indefinable, again passed over Tseng's bruised face. He wanted to keep Rufus as much as he wanted to let him go, and he _did_ want to let him go; Reno could see that. Or he wanted to want to.

"You agree?" he said.

"Lesser of two evils. Yeah."

Tseng looked relieved. "All right. We keep him. The next question is, where? Roz knows the locations of all our safe houses. If they break her, nowhere is safe."

"She won't talk. Neither of them will talk." But Reno said this out of loyalty, not because he believed it. Everyone had their breaking point. Even Turks.

"I cannot trust our lives to that," Tseng replied.

"Yeah, but - she won't tell 'em about the bunker. That'll be the last place she gives them. She'll string 'em along, give 'em old addresses, one at a time, places we stopped using years ago. And Knox, he just won't speak at all."

Their eyes met. Each could see what the other was imagining.

"We'll find them," said Tseng. "There's only so many places they can be. They can't be in the labs. Gadwell would have known. So we can assume Hojo hasn't got his claws into them; that's one small mercy. Although - " Tseng hesitated - "At least he might keep them alive..."

If the President was protecting them, they would have a chance. If they were in Scarlet's hands, then it was going to be race against time. She would kill them as soon as she'd extracted the information she wanted from them, and Knox and Roz would know this, just as Tseng and Reno did. Reno could only hope that the knowledge would give them the strength and the will to hold out against their interrogators –

"Don't," said Tseng. "It will only cloud our minds."

"Tell me you're not picturing yourself in their shoes."

"Trying not to. It doesn't help them. Come on, we've wasted too much time here. Let's move." Tseng began to get to his feet as he said this, but his knees buckled and he swayed, slapping a hand against the wall for support. "I'm all right," he said quickly. His face, drained of colour, told a different story.

"Boss, when was the last time you got some sleep?"

"I don't remember. Yes I do. In Aerith's church. I fell asleep while I was waiting for her."

"And food? When did you last eat?"

"I had some kind of fancy cake at Corneo's. Stop fussing."

Tseng straightened up. His legs were steady now, though his eyes looked dull and dry and he seemed to be having trouble keeping them focused. As if he could read Reno's mind – or, more likely, had read his intention in the fret of his fingers – he said, "Put that materia away. We don't want to draw attention to ourselves. I'll be fine; I'm not the one who was cracked on the head last night. It's not far now. Half an hour."

The visored workmen's hoods were hot, close, stinking. Reno moved to take the helmets, but Tseng was ahead of him, already slinging the bag over his own shoulder. He set a fast pace, leaning into the weight of the bag and stumbling sometimes; walking, it seemed to Reno, as if he'd forgotten or no longer cared that they might run into soldiers or monsters round any bend, recklessly, urgently, pulled by the tug of an invisible hand.

* * *

_Thanks for your patience and thanks for reading!_


	67. By Whatever Means Necessary

**Chapter 67: BY WHATEVER MEANS NECESSARY**

* * *

When they were five minutes from the bunker, Tseng and Reno ducked down a dead-end corridor and shed the sewage workers' overalls. They didn't want the smell of excrement to herald their approach. At the turning to the bunker corridor they crouched down behind a stack of barrels and waited, motionless, listening for any sign of hostile activity. Nothing stirred. Of course, the soldiers could be hiding inside the bunker. Colonel Viljoen, his perfect teeth bared in a winning smile.

"You wanna risk it?" whispered Reno at last.

"Yes," Tseng whispered back.

Rude leapt from the sofa as they came in, grabbing them both and enfolding first Tseng, then Reno, in a back-slapping, lung-crushing bear hug. "You fool," wheezed Reno, "You're not fucking crying?"

"You stink like a public toilet," Rude sniffed, wiping a hand over his cheek. "Damn stench. Making my eyes burn."

"Tseng," said Rufus.

Rude was blocking Reno line of sight. "Move," he said. Rude shifted sideways, allowing him to see Rufus, who stood hesitating on the far side of the room as if unsure of his welcome. His eyes were alight with such happiness that Reno's own cynical heart began to beat a little faster – and Reno wasn't the one he was glad to see.

"Rufus," said Tseng. His eyes were hard.

Rufus grinned helplessly, the way people did when they were nervous, excited, hopeful. Reno, knowing what was coming next, could almost feel sorry for him.

Tseng laid into him without mercy, barely pausing for breath. _Self indulgent_ - _reckless stupidity_ -_ idiotic prank_: each word like the lash of a whip. The way he told it, he and Reno had been practically out the door of the Shinra building when Reeve Tuesti waylaid them and fouled everything up. Why hadn't Rufus had the sense to keep out of it? "This isn't a game, you stupid boy."

Rufus Shinra, of course, was not one to bleed or cry, neither in pain nor from anger. He squared his shoulders, chin held high, and endured Tseng's reprimand for at least as long as any of the rest of them could have borne it, making no attempt to explain or defend himself. Then, while Tseng was still speaking, he turned on his heel and went into his room, slamming the door behind him.

Tseng breathed out. His shoulders sagged. Reno had no idea how he was managing to stay on his feet.

Rude said, "Kinda harsh, Boss."

The bedroom door opened. Clothes came flying out. "Get yourselves cleaned up," said Rufus from behind the door. "You reek."

Rude was the first to move. He picked up the clothes: sweat pants and long-sleeved t-shirts, black and white, loose-fitting the way Rufus liked them. They'd fit anybody, even Rude. "We've got some spare suits in the other bedroom," he said, though he knew Tseng and Reno knew this. He put Rufus's clothes on the sofa.

"We'd better not touch anything until we're clean," said Tseng.

"You go first, Boss."

Unbuckling the infantryman's uniform, Tseng stepped out of it and handed it to Rude, who held it at arm's length. Reno stripped off his uniform too. Rude didn't say, where are your ties, your jackets, your socks, your shoes. Reno, your mag-rod. Boss, your beautiful holsters, the Chief gave them to you. Silently he took the army uniforms to the kitchen and began loading the washing machine. Tseng went into the bathroom and shut the door; Reno looked around for some newspaper or plastic bag to sit on. Rude came back. They could hear the water chugging in the washing machine, water splashing in the shower. Rude and Reno looked at each other. Reno didn't need to see through those x-ray specs to know what his partner was thinking.

From the bathroom came the sound of plastic fabric tearing – a metal bar, crashing to the floor. The thud of a body. The water kept splashing. Reno was ready for it; he was already up and running, because he'd been expecting this. The door wasn't locked. He flung it open. Tseng, dripping wet, was struggling to his feet, clutching the torn shower curtain in his left hand. Blood was trickling into his eye from a fresh graze on his forehead. He didn't seem to feel it.

"I'm all right," he said. "I just – I slipped. I'm fine. I'm fine."

.

.

"Fucking get some sleep, why don't you?" said Reno a little later, when they were both clean and dressed, and Rude had put a plaster on Tseng's brow and potion on the clawmarks down his cheek.

"I can't rest until I know what's happened to Knox and Roz."

Reno was afraid that might be true. Tseng had the frenzied look in his eye of the chronic insomniac. He was almost beyond being reasoned with.

"I just need a coffee," he said. "I'm not tired. I'll be fine."

"I'll get it," said Reno. Under the cover of the percolator's bubbling, he searched through the cupboards and drawers until he found what he needed: a packet of sleep powder.

"Won't the caffeine in the coffee cancel it out?" whispered Rude, looming behind him.

"Nah. He's inoculated. Pure caffeine runs in his veins. Coffee's like mother's milk to him."

"He'll be furious."

"We gotta do something. People can die from lack of sleep."

The speed with which the drug worked on Tseng took them by surprise; Reno wasn't quick enough to catch the mug as it fell from his nerveless fingers. They lifted him by the arms and legs, carried him into the other bedroom, and put him to bed in one of the lower bunks. "You'll thank us one day, Boss," Reno promised.

"I'll stand watch," he said to Rude. "You go see Cissnei. Maybe she doesn't know what's happened. Tell her she needs to find the others. She can move around easier than the rest of us can. Her face isn't so well known. Tell her we gotta put out some feelers, call in favours. Somebody, somewhere, knows where they took Knox and Roz. I'd like to be able to give the Boss some good news when he wakes up."

"You're sure you don't want to go?"

"Let's not muddy the waters," said Reno. "You go."

Rude grinned. "Yeah, if I was you I wouldn't want to show my mug right now either. Not a pretty sight, partner."

Rude took one of the infantryman's uniforms from the dryer. It was a little short in the leg and a little snug across the shoulders, but it would do. The helmets were one-size-fits-all. He unscrewed his earrings, gave them to Reno for safe-keeping, donned the helmet, and tightened the strap to hold it firmly on his shaven head. When he was gone Reno fetched a couple of chairs from the office area and planted them in front of Tseng's closed door. He parked his arse in one chair, put his feet up on the other, tucked his hands inside his armpits, and was just nodding off when a shadow fell across his face.

"No," he said without opening his eyes.

"I only want to see him," said Rufus. "Please."

"He doesn't want to see you. I thought he made that clear. Anyway, he's asleep."

"I know he's asleep. I wouldn't ask if he was awake. If he's asleep, he can't lecture me."

Reno opened his eyes a slit, considering the supplicant standing before him. With a face like that, he thought, was it any wonder everyone always assumed Rufus Shinra was lying? Golden hair, peachy skin, guileless blue eyes: it was just too good to be true.

"Let me see him. Just for a minute. Please, Reno."

At least he wasn't pulling any 'I saved your lives and this is how you repay me' schtick. Reno had to give the V.P. credit for knowing that would cut no ice with _this_ mark.

"Go away," he said wearily.

"What are you afraid of?" asked Rufus, like he was honestly puzzled.

"Huh," said Reno.

"No, I'm asking you a serious question. You're sitting there barring my way as if you think you need to protect him from me. Do you see me as a threat? Do you think I have some kind of special power over him, some – customised Manipulate, through which I bend him to my nefarious will? Tseng makes his own decisions, Reno. I have never been able to make him to do one single thing he did not want to do."

Reno wasn't in the mood for verbal fencing. He put his feet down and sat up. "Look, V.P., Tseng and I have talked. He blames himself. He worries about you. If you want to do something for him – if you really want to make it easier for him, just stay away from him. It's over. Finished. Accept it. You'll be doing us all a favour, including yourself."

Rufus flushed angrily. Reno couldn't remember ever seeing Rufus on the brink of losing his temper before. It was something of a revelation to watch him struggling to rein it back in. "You needn't fear that I'm going to try to change his mind," he said at last. "I don't want to argue with him, Reno, all I want to do is _see_ him. I won't wake him up. Just let me see him. Please."

Reno could feel himself weakening. He knew he was going to give way in the end; Rufus would stand here until he did, arguing and pleading for the next hour, or five hours, or however long it took to wear Reno down. Why not take the short cut? Plus, there was something powerfully persuasive about hearing Rufus Shinra repeat the word _please_ so many times. Like having a rare gold coin pressed into your hand by someone who wouldn't take no for an answer. _Take it, keep it, you deserve it. I insist._

"Five minutes," he said, "And I'm coming in with you."

He moved his chair back and ushered Rufus inside. A small lamp, turned down low, lit the area around Tseng's bunk with a warm sepia glow. The rest of the room was in darkness. Rufus walked forward into the circle of light. He took up his stand at the foot of the bed, one hand on the rail, head bent, very still – doing nothing but looking, just as he had promised. Reno, who had known from the start that bringing Rufus in here was not a good idea, felt even more uncomfortable now, and began to wish he hadn't agreed to it. Tseng would be livid if he ever found out. Plus, there was something creepy about watching people sleep when they didn't know you were there. Voyeuristic. He'd always felt like this, even when he was watching people as part of a job, when he _was_ the dark thing lurking in the shadows.

He had never seen anyone pour as much energy into the act of looking as Rufus was doing now. The sheer intensity of that silent gaze made Reno feel twitchy and hot. In Rufus's face so much tenderness had been concentrated, and so much longing, that it was like catching him in private, stripped naked. His whole self was laid bare. And he didn't seem to care that Reno could see.

Finally Reno couldn't stand it any more. "You stare any louder, you're gonna wake him up," he whispered gruffly.

"I know what he's trying to do," Rufus stage-whispered back. "He's trying to make me hate him. You're completely transparent, Tseng."

Tseng muttered something and rolled onto his side. "That's it," said Reno, "Time's up. Out you go."

He was prepared for resistance, but Rufus went quietly. Reno shut the door behind them, and, since mounting a guard seemed pointless now and he had some stuff he wanted to say, he followed Rufus to the sitting area.

"V.P.," he said, "Listen to me. You gotta – you gotta be more careful. Govern your face, right? Even if you think no one's watching. Someone's _always_ watching, and if your Old Man or Scarlet ever catches you looking at him like that, it's game over. And that's supposing we all get out of this alive. You understand what I'm saying?"

The Vice-President's fists clenched. "I _hate_ living like this," he declared.

"Yeah, well, better'n being dead."

"Who did that to his face?"

"Who do you think?"

"I so hoped she was dead."

"You and me both." Reno looked round for somewhere to sit. The little ginger cat was curled up in the centre of the purple plaid sofa. Reno spread himself out on the sofa opposite, stretching his long legs across the coffee table and draping his arms along the back of the cushions.

Rufus sat down next to his cat. He stroked his hand down its arched spine, once, twice, and then said, "Skeeter told us Rosalind called you just before she was captured. He said she told you that Knox had killed Scarlet."

"That's right," said Reno warily.

"You may not know that she called Hunter too, and told her the same thing - that Scarlet was dead and Knox had killed her. But when I spoke to Reeve, he said he didn't know how that rumour had started. He seemed to be sorry it wasn't true."

"Yeah. He hates her."

"Of course he does, he's entirely predictable. What puzzles me is how Rosalind could have been so badly mistaken. Her eyesight is excellent. Normally, when she says she saw something, you can take her word for it."

"Yeah," Reno nodded. "I guess we won't know what really happened till we get them back and she can tell us herself."

"Would you like to hear my theory?"

_Why do I get the feeling you're going to tell me anyway? _ And yet there was a not-so-little part of Reno that found itself curious to hear what was going on inside Rufus's mind."All right, V.P. Shoot."

Rufus leaned forward. "Let's consider the evidence. Rosalind knows a dead body when she sees one, and she knows what Scarlet looks like. If she says she saw Knox kill Scarlet, that's what she must have seen. Rosalind doesn't make mistakes. But it seems incredible to me that Knox would do something so stupid. He's been a Turk the longest of any of you. He knows what the repercussions of killing a Director would be, for himself and for the whole Department. Bearing all that in mind, I can think of only two explanations for what Rosalind saw. One, Scarlet personally attacked Knox and he retaliated in self-defense. That's clearly not what happened, though, because Scarlet is still alive and apparently unscathed. Which brings us to my second hypothesis: What Rosalind saw was not Knox killing Scarlet, or even trying to kill Scarlet, but a scene staged to make it look as if he had."

Something the Boss had said earlier came back to Reno. "Tseng thinks she blew up the factory herself."

"It's more than likely. Reno, do you remember the women you saw in the lobby last week? The ones you thought Palmer was hiring? The identical blonde quintuplets?"

When Roz had cracked the dirty joke about Palmer's rocket failing to launch. Reno remembered it now. "How do you know about that? You weren't even there."

"Tseng mentioned them to me. He thought I'd find it funny. And I have access through the company's intranet to all the departments' files, including the password-locked areas. Or perhaps I should say," Rufus allowed himself a little smirk, "that I have assigned myself access. The Director recruiting those Scarlet dopplegangers was not Palmer – "

"Shit!" Reno exclaimed, clapping a hand to his forehead. "Of course! That's it. She used a body double! That's how she did it. Fucking hell."

Rufus nodded. "Now you see it. Of course I have no conclusive proof, but it's the only logical explanation. Either the double was instructed to attack Knox, or one of Scarlet's agents killed the double and staged the scene to frame him. Scarlet may even have done it herself. The entire operation appears to me to have been meticulously planned. The acquisition of the lookalike; the bombing of the factory almost immediately after Zack was killed, when we were already thrown on the defensive and discredited in the eyes of my old man; the swiftness with which the arrests were carried out: all of this suggests considerable forethought. No doubt she was hoping Tseng himself would come to investigate the factory bombing. But any one of you would have done just as well."

"But that means – she hired the chick in order to kill her." Reno recalled them clearly now, those five eager, pretty women, dressed to impress, sitting around the table in the mezzanine, each hoping she would be the lucky one. "Fucking hell," he breathed out slowly. "You know what? I don't even find it hard to believe."

"Reno, do you suppose my father was in on it? Do you think she had his blessing?"

"What? Look, V.P., _her _I can believe it of, but he wouldn't blow up his own fucking factory, that's crazy."

"Well," said Rufus. "Quite."

"Just to get at us? Why would he do that? If he wants to send the army after us, all he has to do is give the word, nobody's gonna ask him for his reasons. He can do what he damn well pleases."

"Well, I would suggest that he does these things because they amuse him. Hardly the best way to run a company, though, is it?"

Reno's long experience of dealing with the young man sitting opposite warned him that now would be a good moment to pause and think. With most people, the turn this conversation was taking might be construed as chance. But not with Rufus. He was leading Reno somewhere, and Reno didn't care to be led. Especially not when he could see where they were heading.

"Let's cut to the chase, V.P.," he said. "I know what you want."

"What do I want, Reno?"

"Us. The Turks. You want to turn us against your Old Man and get us working for you."

Rufus smiled. "Funnily enough, Rude accused me of the very same thing last night. My answer to you is the same as my answer to him. Of course I would like to have your loyalty and support. I've never made a secret of that. But if you recall, I told you when you brought me down here that one day you would need me more than I needed you. I'd say that day has come, wouldn't you? I didn't have to return here after I saw Reeve, you know. I could have walked right on up to my father's penthouse and he would have welcomed his prodigal son with open arms. Can you say the same about yourselves?"

"If that sadistic bitch didn't see you first," Reno grumbled.

"I came back because I wanted to show you that you can trust me."

"Bullshit. You came back because of Tseng."

"Yes." Rufus didn't miss a beat. "He needs leverage if he's going to save you."

"And you're volunteering out of the goodness of your heart."

"The Turks are vital to my plans. I can't afford to lose any more of you."

Reno leaned back against the sofa, considering Rufus's words. It was really kind of uncanny how he did that: came out with the exact thing you suspected him of secretly thinking, but somehow made it sound like you'd be stupid to believe a word he said.

"What plans?" said Reno.

The Vice-President responded by leaning back against his own sofa, mirroring Reno's pose. He smiled, and said blandly, "I'm afraid you lack the requisite level of security clearance for me to tell you that, Reno."

_Yeah, well - fuck you. You think I don't have a clue? _"Let's get one thing straight, okay? We are not gonna snuff your Daddy for you."

Rufus laughed. It sounded spontaneous. "I'm not sixteen any more, Reno. I like to think I've learned a little bit about patience during the four years I've spent in your custody. But I will tell you this: if that were what I wanted, I would do it myself. I wouldn't ask it of you. I understand where your limits are, now."

Reno knew the smart thing would be to let it go. Act like he didn't give a shit about the condescending git's plans. Pretend the curiosity wasn't eating away at him. Do a Rude. But he couldn't. Rufus was dangling this wiggly worm in front of him and like the dumb fish he was, he had to bite. "Has it got anything to do with the Promised Land?"

"The Promised Land?" Rufus looked baffled.

"Your old man's looking for it. Tseng's been talking about it. It's supposed to be the answer to everything. What I want to know is, does it really exists?"

"You're asking me?"

"Well, yeah."

"But how could I possibly know that? It's like asking if there's life after death; I haven't been there and come back again. I haven't been anywhere these last four years, except in my imagination."

"Exactly. You read a lot. You're clever. You think about this stuff. Do you believe it exists?"

Rufus's lip curled. "If you want to talk about _belief_, you should speak to my father. Although the answer you get will depend on whom he last had a conversation with. I prefer to base my decisions on a reasoned analysis of the facts."

_Oh, for fuck's sake. _"All right then, do you _think_ that it exists?"

"Well, one should always keep an open mind. There is so much that we don't know. But on the balance of probability, given the evidence we currently have at our disposal – No."

Reno's fidgety fingers craved a cigarette. He had searched all over the bunker: there wasn't a single one to be had. He made do with pulling at his earlobe, twisting the stud. "Tseng told me some things about the mako. I want to know if they're true."

"They are true."

This unexpectedly direct answer took Reno by surprise. "Don't you want to know what they are?"

"I know what they are."

_Okay, then. Okay. Let me tell you something else you already know. _"Tseng thinks that we should do it. Work for you. He thinks you've got what it takes to lead us out of this mess we're in. I mean the company, not just the Turks."

"No doubt you thought to yourself, 'well, Tseng would think that, wouldn't he?'"

"He knows I've got my reservations."

"You'd be a fool if you didn't." Rufus leaned forward. "But let me put it to you this way. Tseng knows me very well. I would say there is nobody in the world who knows me better than he does. And you know him. Do you honestly believe that I could pull the wool over his eyes so completely, and for so long? Do you really think he is that easy to deceive?"

_Oh, fuck you, _thought Reno, _you're too good at this game. What's the right answer? Yes? No? Here's what I know: there isn't a man alive who can't be played for a fool once he starts thinking with his heart. And that's the problem. You're so smart, V.P. - can't you see that that's the problem?_

"Look," he said, "Tseng's my boss, right? I do what he tells me to do. If he decides we're going to work for you, that's what I'll do. If he tells me to take my orders from you, I'll do that. If he tells me to drop you off the dock at Junon with weights tied to your feet… You get the picture. I trust Tseng to do his best for us, but that doesn't mean I always think he gets it right, and when I think he's got it wrong I'm going to let him know. That's my job."

"Reno, tell me, what can I do to make you trust me?"

_Nothing? _"I don't know," said Reno. "Something. We're in the shit here. Do something for us."

"I _did _save your life last night."

"You saved Tseng's life. I came along for the ride. And you did that for yourself. It's not enough. You need to do something for us. Something you don't get anything out of personally. Something that isn't all about Rufus Shinra. If you want us to put our trust in you, you gotta show us that you can deliver."

"What would you suggest?"

The thing was, Reno didn't really know. Aside from acting all haughty and bullshitting people - and taming fucking cats - what was Rufus good at? "You could start by trying to help us find Knox and Roz. You're better at code-breaking than the rest of us. Not in Roz's league, but you'll do. Somewhere in the company servers there's gotta be a record where they're being held. I reckon you're our best chance of finding it."

Reno said this because it was the truth; he wasn't in the habit of dishing compliments. What puzzled him was Rufus's reaction. The V.P. looked almost offended – no, _hurt_, as if Reno had insulted him, when all he'd done was answer his damn question.

"What the fuck is wrong now?" he asked. "You got a problem with making yourself useful?"

"You think you know me, don't you?" Rufus replied. "You assume I've been sitting here twiddling my thumbs waiting for Tseng to return. It's never even crossed your mind that I might care about what happens to Knox and Roz and want to get them back just as much as you do. But despite what you may think - "

Reno made a shushing gesture, and Rufus, surprisingly, allowed himself to be shushed. "Yeah, never mind about that. Are you saying you've been looking?"

"Of course I have."

"What have you found?"

Rufus hesitated, as if he was lost for words, which was really, really unlike him. What the hell did he know? "Spit it out, man."

"I had to check the morgue records. I'm sorry, Reno, but it was the logical thing to do."

"And?"

"The bodies from the factory have complicated the issue. Sixteen males, thirteen females, and one so badly burnt they're awaiting DNA tests to confirm the gender. No names. Identification isn't complete. Of course, they probably wouldn't record them under their Turk names anyway… And I don't know if Scarlet's double is included in the tally –"

"Would you just get to the fucking point?"

"I cross checked the morgue's figures against HR's list of factory personnel known to have been killed in the blast. They have fifteen males, twelve females." Rufus paused. "The numbers speak for themselves."

Three of the bodies in the morgue did not belong to factory employees. At least one of them was a man, and one was a woman. Reno took his hand away from his mouth and said, "You think they're dead, don't you?"

He was waiting for Rufus to come back with some mouthful of jargon, like: 'the balance of probability would suggest that that is the likeliest scenario'. But Rufus, yet again, surprised him.

"As long as there's a chance they're still alive," he said, "I'll keep looking."

.

* * *

.

That night Aviva slept on the floor, wrapped in a blanket. She had planned to rise at dawn, but she was so worn out and she slept so deeply that when she awoke, stiff, bruised, and ravenously hungry, the sun was already high in the sky. Her first order of business was to check on her prisoner. The woman was still out cold, but looked much better. She might be well enough to answer some questions later.

Aviva moved the chair she had jammed under the door handle (it wasn't the men in this inn she was afraid of so much as the trouble that would ensue if she was forced to shoot one) and went down the stairs to see if the innkeeper was ready to start charging her cell-phone. He wasn't at his desk. She searched the building, but could not find him anywhere; the inn was empty aside from a single hairy lump of humanity snoring under the blankets on a cot in the furthest corner of the dormitory.

Seeing that she had the place to herself, Aviva decided she could afford to lay aside her weapons long enough to take a shower in the inn's single washroom. The water was lukewarm, and she had to use her blanket as a towel, but once she was clean she felt brighter. Back in her room she got dressed in the same blouse, skirt and jacket she had been wearing the day before; these were the only clothes she possessed, aside from her suit. Really, she hadn't thought this running away thing though very well. She didn't even have a toothbrush.

Hunger drove her out in search of breakfast. Down by the railway tracks she found a booth selling hot coffee and churros rolled in cinnamon-flavoured sugar. She ate them standing up, three of them, one after the other, barely chewing each mouthful before gulping it down. She bought three more in case the prisoner was hungry when she awoke, as well as a paper bag of nuts and raisins from the mother of the beggar child. Then she returned to the inn, where the prisoner still had not awakened.

A rap at her door announced the innkeeper. He had obtained a live car battery, and was ready to try charging her phone.

"She a pal of yours or something?" he asked as he tightened the wires round the terminals with a pair of rusty pliers.

"I don't know who she is. I found her on the other side of the bridge."

"Taking a bit of a risk, aren't you?"

"She's sick. I couldn't just leave her there."

He wiped the hair from his brow. "Damn," he said. "It's not working. We need to try something else. Have you got any materia?"

"That won't help."

"Bolt materia might."

Aviva hesitated. He might actually be right. Reno used bolt materia to power his mag-rod. If he could do that, then it ought to be possible to charge a phone in the same way. It was worth a shot, anyway. "Is there a materia shop in this town?" she asked.

"Not a retailer, but I know someone who might let us borrow one. Come on." He led her downhill to a tent on the other side of the tracks, where they found a hard-faced woman who, for two hundred gil, agreed to lend them her unmastered Bolt. Back at the inn, Aviva watched anxiously while her white knight's hands fiddled with the clamps and wires. In her gut she felt she ought to have insisted on doing the job herself. After all, she was the one who had studied with the master. But the innkeeper did at least appear to know one end of a screwdriver from the other, and he was so keen to help, and she _needed_ help, and she really did not want to alienate the one person in this town who was trying to be helpful -

"Got it," he cried triumphantly.

The display panel lit up. Astonished and delighted, Aviva reached out to take her phone. Before she could touch it, he yelped, "Shit!" and snatched his hand away. The phone fell between them. It made a softsound as it landed on the table, a sound like the splat of putty, and it didn't bounce but _stuck_ there, because - Aviva realised in dismay - it wasn't a phone any more but a vaguely phone-shaped blob of hot melted black plastic slowly spreading itself across the table top.

"Oh god," he said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He couldn't stop apologizing. Aviva saw blisters coming up on his hand. She took him by the wrist and led him to the bathroom, to run cold water over his burns. She was angry, but not with him. He had tried his best. She was angry with herself for agreeing to let him try. Bolt materia wasn't designed to be a battery, and just because Reno used it like one in his rod didn't mean that any old Joe Average could pull off the same trick.

Both her phones were now useless. The hour was just past noon. Time was wasting, and the imperative to call Tseng grew more urgent with every passing minute. The Turks couldn't afford to let the army get the drop on them again. She needed to solve this problem, and fast.

The reactor would have a phone hotline straight to company HQ. But going to the reactor for help would mean leaving her prisoner alone and unguarded for hours. What was more, the reactor was on a security alert: if she didn't run into Ravens, she might end up getting shot by some trigger-happy grunt before she could identify herself. And anyway, after that ugly punch-up in the Honeybee, Aviva didn't trust the military to do the honourable thing. They could easily confiscate her prisoner and claim the breakthrough for themselves. No, she wouldn't go to the reactor, except as a last resort.

What about the ropeway station? Surely one of the tourists waiting in the queue for the cable car was bound to have a cellphone they'd be willing to lend her. The station was only an hour away - half that if she ran. Much closer than the reactor. Right, then: the ropeway it would be. First, though, she needed to check on her prisoner.

The woman was awake at last, sitting up in bed, sipping water through a straw. She turned her head towards the sound of Aviva's footsteps, eyes squinting short-sightedly. Her glasses lay on the table, next to the lamp. She groped for them, but only succeeded in knocking them to the floor. Aviva picked them up and handed them to her, saying, "Well, you had a good sleep, didn't you? How are you feeling?"

The woman took so long to answer that Aviva began to think she was still dazed from the sunstroke. It probably felt a bit like waking from a coma. Her memory would be all fuzzy, her head teeming with questions. She must be wondering where on earth she was, and who Aviva was, and how she had come to be here; she must be asking herself if she was safe, and what this strange girl wanted from her.

But when the woman spoke, it was only to state categorically, "This is North Corel."

"Uh - Yes," Aviva replied, a little taken aback by the complete absence of anything resembling a question mark in the woman's tone. "Do you know it? Have you been here before?"

"No." Pause. "You brought me here."

"You remember that?"

"No," the woman admitted. "I deduced it."

"I found you last night on the other side of the bridge, passed out on the railways tracks. You were sick, so I helped you back here. You had sunstroke. You don't remember?"

The prisoner made no reply. She simply continued to regard Aviva with an unblinking, almost aggressive gaze. The thick lenses magnified her eyes: they were sharply intelligent and very guarded. _This woman_, thought Aviva, _has definitely got something to hide. _

Still, it wouldn't do for the woman to become aware that she was under suspicion. The prisoner must not realise she was a prisoner. She would be much easier to manage if she thought of Aviva only as her rescuer and her friend.

"Let me introduce myself," said Aviva, putting her hand out. "I'm Linnet. Linnet Cooper, materia hunter." Of all the many aliases she had adopted over the course of her Turk career, Reno had once said that _Linnet_ suited her best of all. It was the name she had used to sign the inn's guestbook. In places like this, no one asked for ID cards.

The woman stared at Aviva's hand in a puzzled sort of way, not rudely, but as if she didn't quite understand what the gesture was supposed to mean. Then, slowly and with effort, she reached her own hand out, and touched her fingertips to Aviva's. "Wanda," she said. "Wanda West."

She was no better at lying than she was at smiling. Aviva, on the other hand, liked to think she was pretty good at both when she put her mind to it. Schooling her features into an expression of gentle concern, she said, "Well, Wanda, you really had me worried there for a while, you know. A couple of times last night I was afraid you were going to peg out on me. You must have been wandering around in the sun for hours. What happened?"

"I - got lost."

"Don't you know what happens to people who are caught on Shinra land without the proper authorisation?"

The prisoner appeared to give this some thought. Then she replied, "I might ask you the same question."

"Well, sure, but for me it's a calculated risk. Everybody knows the best places to find the really rare materia are where the monsters are thickest."

The woman said, "And the nearer you get to a reactor, the more monsters. Did you find anything good?"

"I didn't find any materia, but I saw a very strange monster. I don't think it was local; normally all you get round here are birds, bugs and bombs. I'm trying to work out where it must have come from."

The woman veiled her eyes with a look of boredom. "Those creatures don't scare me. The monsters in human form are the ones I'm more afraid of."

"Oh my gosh," Aviva exclaimed, pretending to misunderstand her, "That's exactly what it was! It was shaped like a person, but taller than a normal person, and black, with claws. And it was stalking me. It was so close I could hear the sounds it was making. Like this: keh-keh-keh."

Behind the thick lenses, Wanda's eyes widened. If Aviva hadn't been watching out for it, she might have missed it, that split-second look of guilty fearfulness. Then Wanda blinked, and her lips parted in what Aviva, after a moment, understood was meant to be a smile. She said, "I was referring to _men."_

"There was a man out there too. I think he was hunting the monster. He fired a mako gun. It set off the alarm at the reactor. I was running away when I fell over you."

"Did he kill it?"

"I didn't stick around to find out. You don't have any idea what it could have been, do you?"

"No," the prisoner replied just a little too quickly. "I – I don't know much about the monsters round here. It could be a new breed. There are always new kinds of monsters appearing, aren't there? New mutations."

"What about the man?"

Wanda hesitated. "Shinra, probably."

"Working on his own?"

"He could have been a bounty hunter. A rare monster like that would be worth the risk."

"Did you see them?"

"Me? No. No."

"So he wasn't with you?"

"What? No – what made you say that? You're the one who saw them, not me. I didn't see any monsters - or any men either. I didn't see anyone else the whole time I was out there."

It was on the tip of Aviva's tongue to ask, _and just what was your business out there, trespassing on company property, hmm? _ She was longing to ask about 'Shelke', too. But she knew better than to push it. She didn't want to set any alarm bells ringing in the prisoner's head. The Boss would handle the real interrogation; her job was to pass the information to him, and keep the prisoner contained until he arrived. She needed to hurry and make that phone call.

In the meantime, what should she do with 'Wanda'? She had no handcuffs, no rope, no materia with which to immobilize her prisoner - and even if restraints were available, it would have been the height of incompetence to leave an angry, frightened prisoner tied up alone in a hotel room in a hostile town. Taking Wanda with her wasn't an option either. For one thing, the prisoner was unlikely to be cooperative, and for another, she was still weak from the sunstroke and in no fit state to go anywhere. Even if she did try to leave while Aviva's back was turned, she'd collapse before she got very far.

"You're still looking a bit pale," Aviva told her. "You really ought to try to rest some more. I have to go out now, but I won't be long. Help yourself to the food if you get hungry. There's a shower down the stairs if you want a wash. Ask the innkeeper for a towel."

"Linnet – wait."

Already halfway out the door, Aviva stopped and turned back.

"You gave me your bed," said the woman. "You slept on the floor."

To her dismay, Aviva felt her cheeks begin to blush, and yet it wasn't embarrassment she felt so much as… well, not _guilt_, because this woman was a liar and almost certainly a member of Avalanche. But it felt wrong to be thanked by a prisoner, even when – or especiallywhen – the prisoner did not know she was a prisoner. "It's okay," she said. "Really. I've slept on harder floors than this. You were sick. At least you're better now."

"Last night… you were running for your own life. And yet you stopped to help me, even though I slowed you down."

"Anyone would have done the same."

"Not in my experience. Most people would have thought only of saving themselves. That's the kind of world we live in."

_Your world, maybe_, thought Aviva. _ Not mine. Not since the day I became a Turk_.

"Just take it easy," she said. "I'll be back soon."

On her way out she passed the front desk. "My patient shouldn't go out in this heat," she said to the innkeeper. "Could you keep an eye an eye on her for me?"

He waved a bandaged hand and grinned. "No problem."

* * *

_As always, dear readers, thanks for your support._


	68. Several Unexpected Encounters

**CHAPTER 68: SEVERAL UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTERS**

* * *

**1. Corel**

In the old days, when Corel was still a working mining town, the railway had run all the way to the sea. There, huge gantries had loaded the containers onto steam freighters, and the freighters had shipped Corel's coal around the world. But clean mako energy had replaced the grime and smog of carbon fuel; Corel had burnt down, and the mines had closed, and since the railway no longer served a purpose, most of it had been taken up and recycled. The tracks were smelted into girders for the construction of Gold Saucer; the teak ties became luxury furniture, sold through exclusive outlets in Midgar, Kalm, and Junon; the little railway stations had been converted into holiday homes. All that remained to mark the historic coal-way was the flat gravel path that ran between North Corel and the Gold Saucer car park, along which Aviva was now hurrying.

Years ago, when she was a very small girl, she and her friends had spent many hours roaming up and down the railway tracks, scavenging for coal and daring each other to games of chicken with the puffing trains. Once, she'd even seen a train jump the rails. Nobody was hurt, and the coal had spilled everywhere, a bonanza for looting hands. The few happy memories she retained from her childhood were mostly associated with this old railway, and under normal circumstances a jog along its ghostly path would have filled her with bittersweet nostalgia. Today, however, all she could think about was her prisoner.

What a prickly character that Wanda was! Just like a cactuar, all bristly and elusive. Or - no: what she was _really_ like, Aviva decided, was one of those giant Mideelian pangolins, a spiral curled in on itself, defended against life's cruelties by an armour-plating of mistrust. _If my life had turned out differently_, Aviva wondered, _could I have ended up like her?_ It didn't seem possible. Even when things were at their very worst, she had never lost her faith in human nature. And then Natalya had come along, and the Chief and Reno and - oh, _everything, _more than she could have ever dreamt of, which proved that she had been right to keep hoping.

How awful it must be to live in a world where you took it for granted that if someone found you lying unconscious on the ground they would walk right over you and leave you there to die! In what kind of world did people _do_ that? Even in the slums people weren't that degenerate. Of course there were bad eggs everywhere, but most people were decent. Most people would stop to help someone in need. That was just basic human nature. Even down in the worst parts of Sector 2 and Sector 3 Aviva had seen first-hand on more than one occasion how ordinary men and women would go out of their way to help a stranger, without expecting anything in return. The slum-dwellers might not have much money, but when it came to kindness they were as rich as the President himself.

Evidently, Avalanche's world wasn't like that.

But then what could you expect from people whose answer to every problem was to blow up anything and everyone that stood in their way? They called themselves environmentalists, but Aviva failed to see how threatening the destruction of all life on earth was any kind of improvement on her company's own policies. Fuhito didn't care about _people_. In his own way, he was as bad as Professor Hojo. He probably didn't even think of _himself_ as a human being, and he treated his operatives as if they were totally disposable, like - like bullet cartridges. To him, individual human beings were nothing more than a means to an end.

Aviva could just about accept, intellectually, that someone might sincerely hold this belief, but when she tried to imagine how it would feel, in your heart, to believe that the life of a human child was worth no more than the life of a fly, or a blade of grass, or a jumping, her mind boggled, and it seemed to her that Fuhito was really no different from the do-gooders who got all up in arms about child workers in Shinra's munitions factories in far-off Wutai, while turning a blind eye to the beggars outside their own front door.

Breathless with indignation, Aviva sprinted up the final hill and stopped, looking around, puzzled. Something was wrong. The Gold Saucer car park was full of cars, as usual, but where were all the people? She couldn't see a single living soul. Normally long queues stretched outside the toilets and the ticket booth, but today there was no one. No sounds of laughter, no revving engines or canned music, no excited children's voices; no smells of vinegary chips, greasy burgers and cotton candy. The concession stalls had been shut up, their awnings folded away.

Shading her eyes from the sun's glare, Aviva continued along the path that led to the ropeway. The cable machinery was silent; the aerocar's berth was empty.

The door to the ticket booth had been padlocked. A printed sign in the window confirmed what she had already guessed: "SECURITY ALERT. CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE". A second, hand-written sign conveyed Mr Cassio Dio's regrets to his esteemed clients and gave a number for customer service. Peering through the window, Aviva could make out the shape of a phone sitting on the ticket booth desk.

In a gully on the edge of the carpark she found a rock and used it to smash the padlock open. She picked up the phone's receiver, heard the dial tone, and tried calling Tseng's number. The dial tone persisted. After thinking for a moment, she pressed 0, and had entered half of Tseng's number when the phone on the other end picked up. "Hullo?" said a young man's voice. "Gold Saucer Central Transportation Services. How may I help you?"

Damn, she should have guessed it would be a closed line. The man at the other end didn't seem to have realised yet that she was calling from one of the Saucer's own phones. "The ropeway's shut," she said. "What happened?"

"Haven't you heard? There was another big bombing in Midgar last night. It's all over the news."

_A bombing?_ Her mind turned gluey all of a sudden. _In Midgar?_

She took a shaky was not the time to panic_. _Midgar was a huge city. Even with a big bomb, most people, even those close to the epicenter, usually escaped injury. The odds of anyone she knew being hurt in the bombing were very small, unless - "Was it the Shinra Building?"

"No. They hit a factory on the outskirts of the city. Dozens of people were killed. And somebody tried to assassinate one of the bigwigs – the President, I think."

Aviva's gut clenched. "Is he all right?"

The clerk laughed. "When is he not all right? He's got his meat shield, hasn't he?"

_Oh god, let__ them all be safe, please - _

"I need to place a call to Midgar," she said. "It's very urgent."

"What number did you dial, miss? This is the Gold Saucer Central Transportation Services, not a public switchboard. Hey, wait a minute. You're calling from the ropeway station." He must have checked his caller ID. "What are you doing in there? That's supposed to be locked."

"Please," said Aviva, "I work for Shinra. I have to call HQ. It's about the bombing – "

"Is this a prank call?"

"No, I'm telling you, I work for Shinra – "

"You little punks are really pushing your luck. If we catch you vandalizing our property one more time, it'll be straight to the prison for you. Mr Dio's not in a forgiving mood, not after the last incident – "

Mr Dio! Of course! He owed her a favour: she and Rude had saved him a fortune when they smashed the race-fixing ring. "Put me through to him," she said. "Tell him it's Aviva and I need his help."

"I'm calling security." The young man hung up.

Aviva was about to call him back, then hesitated. She didn't know how long it would take for Security to get here, and she was pretty sure she didn't want to wait to find out. One of them might recognise her face. She and Rude had got to know quite a few of the Saucer guards while they were investigating the race-fixing ring - and since it had turned out that three of their own number were the masterminds behind that particular scam, being recognised by them as the Turk who had sent their pals to prison was not something Aviva was prepared to risk.

The distance from the ropeway station to North Corel was almost four miles, and Aviva ran it without stopping, ignoring the gravel in her sandals. How, she asked herself as she ran, how, _how_ was it possible in this day and age to find herself in a place that had no means of communicating with the outside world? She was being thwarted at every turn. But was she going to let it beat her? No, sir, she was not. She was a Turk, and Turks always found a way.

She was going to fix the pay phone at the inn.

The innkeeper would surely lend her his tools now that they were buddies. She would fix it and then she was going to call Tseng and he would tell her that none of her friends had been hurt in the terrorist attack and then she'd tell him about her Avalanche prisoner and he'd say _Good work_ in that deep voice of his and he would be so pleased he might even overlook her temporary absence without leave.

And if she couldn't fix the pay phone – well, then she'd fall back on Plan B and take Wanda to the reactor, marching her at gun point if needs be, and if that meant allowing the army to steal her glory she would just suck it up. Right now, the only thing that mattered was making contact with the Boss.

Her new friend was fast asleep behind his desk. She ran past him, making for the stairs. Halfway up the stairs she noticed a faint smell of burning hanging in the air. When she reached the top of the stairs she saw that her door was wide open.

Dread prickled up her spine. Even before she entered the room, she knew what she would find.

Wanda had been through her things. Her backpack - idiot that she was for leaving it here! - had been turned inside out and dumped on the bed. Her Turk suit had been thrown to the floor, her jacket kicked into one corner, her trousers into another, both trampled with dusty foot-prints. Her Turk shoes had been thrown against the wall with so much force that deep dents had been left in the plaster. Aviva bent to pick them up. A gob of spit glistened inside each one.

Her work shirt had been torn to shreds, stuffed into the wastebasket along with her tie, and set on fire. A few scorched shreds of fabric were all that remained. Aviva scooped them out, cradled reverently in her hands. They were still warm.

Her whole body shook with outrage. Everything she held most dear had been desecrated, violated, by someone whose life she had gone out of her way to save. Being hated was nothing new to her, but _this_ - this spitting, kicking, burning - this was the kind of thing crazy people did.

In haste Aviva stripped off her civilian clothes, keeping only the blouse, and dressed in her Turk suit. The time for disguises was over. She wiped out the spit from her shoes and put them on. The charred remnants of her shirt and her beloved tie could not be abandoned; she wrapped them in her civvy skirt and tucked them in the bottom of her bag, where they would remain until she could dispose of them with all the ceremony that was their due. She slung the bag over her shoulder. Then she went to wake up the innkeeper.

He opened his eyes. "Shit!" he cried, almost falling off his chair. "That suit! I've seen it before. You're not – "

"My prisoner is gone. Where did she go?"

"Prisoner? What the – "

"I told you to watch her."

"What the hell? I just nodded off for a couple of minutes - "

He was useless. Aviva ran outside. Which way had the prisoner gone? Towards the reactor? Surely not even Wanda could be _that_ crazy. And not to the ropeway station either; Aviva would have passed her on the way. Into the desert? Not unless she was trying to commit suicide. She must be heading for the hills. If Avalanche had a base round here, that was where it would be, hidden deep in the limestone caves.

Whichever way she'd gone, she didn't have much of a head start, judging from the wetness of the spit in Aviva's shoes and the fact that the wastebasket had still been warm from the fire. All Aviva had to do was choose the right direction and she would catch her up in no time Wanda couldn't possibly have gone far, not in her weakened state. And she had no means of defending herself. Crazy woman. _Crazy_ woman. Aviva _had_ to find her, fast – before the monsters did.

She ran back inside, past the stunned innkeeper, through the dormitory, up the stairs, and up another narrower set of steps that ended in a trap-door. Finding it it unlocked, she flung it open and climbed onto the roof. The dust here was scuffed with boot-prints both large and small; Aviva couldn't tell exactly how many feet were involved, but it looked likely that Wanda had come this way and that she wasn't alone. Perhaps Fuhito had sent his Ravens to rescue her. Aviva would have to be doubly on her guard.

North Corel's inn was built into the side of a hill. From its flat roof, a path wound up the hill to a look-out point. The path was narrow, steep, and treacherous: Aviva had to pull herself along, using the thorny bushes with their tenacious roots as handholds. Twice she slipped and almost fell. When she reached the top, she crouched down low, trying to make herself look rock-shaped while she scanned the horizon.

That was when she saw him.

Even from a quarter of a mile away there could be no mistaking that big head and those powerful, rounded shoulders, nor the way he walked, like a shambling bear. From his walk alone she would have known him. Her first instinct was to shout for joy, leap up and run to him – she was already on her feet, filling her lungs with air in order to call out his name, when the Turk instincts he had worked so hard to instill in her reasserted themselves, and she clapped both hands over her mouth and immediately sank back into a crouch, thinking hard, putting it all together.

Did he know she was here? Stupid, of course he did. He'd always had a sixth sense where his Turks were concerned. Maybe he wasn't aware that at this precise moment she was watching him from the top of this very hill (although she wouldn't put it past him) but he knew she was in North Corel; she could be sure of that. He had avoided her on purpose. That was… so sad it made her heart hurt, but all the same it was only to be expected and anyway her feelings were not important right now. What mattered was why he was here - and what else could have brought him here but Avalanche? He was tracking her escaped prisoner. He must be.

The path he was walking led south-east towards the hills. If she continued along the trail in front of her, she would eventually catch up with him. He must have come this way before her; that would explain the big footprints on the roof. He must have been watching her, waiting for her to go out, waiting for his chance. Now all she had to do was follow him, and he would lead her to Wanda.

And if he didn't…

If it turned out that his presence in Corel had nothing to do with Avalanche... If this encounter was merely an extraordinary coincidence... It didn't make any difference. Wanda was no longer the priority. _He_ was. Had Tseng been here, Aviva knew what his orders would have been, so how could she do otherwise than follow him? They would all have done the same.

She was almost at the bottom of the hill when a stone gave way under her foot. Her ankle twisted, reawakening the old injury in her thigh. A sharp pain shot from her hip to her spine, and she staggered and fell. "Damn," she muttered, getting back onto her feet. She hoped he hadn't heard her.

Something struck her, not hard, in the small of her back. It felt like a fist, but it wasn't.

A halo of fizzing energy enveloped her body. The dreaded pins and needles sensation flooded her limbs, followed immediately by paralysis. Unable to turn her head, or even move her eyes, she could not see who - or what - had cast the spell on her. But she could guess.

When it came to monsters, each Turk had his or her own private phobia. Reno hated sahagin. Rude had once admitted to having nightmares about mu. Kimara bugs gave Roz the creeps so badly she could hardly bear to look at them; whenever she had to deal with one she covered her eyes, peeking through the fingers of one hand while she shot with the other. Hunter, who feared no living thing on earth, said that rogue machines made her skin crawl.

For Aviva, who had grown up in Corel, the most loathsome monster of all, the one she had been taught to fear from her earliest childhood, was the chitin.

It lumbered into her field of vision, lurching from side to side, flailing its many legs in the air. She saw that it was a Death Claw, and that it was wounded and enraged and unless this paralysis wore off in the next ten seconds it was going to eat her alive. Its mouth would touch her skin. The prospect made gut churn. It had a face that was almost human -

From somewhere behind her left shoulder a bolt of mako energy came arrowing past and hit the chitin dead centre, slamming it back against the rocks. She heard its shell crack. It slid to the ground and lay there, motionless. Aviva, spell-bound, still could not turn her head. Footsteps crunched towards her. "You all right?" said a man's voice. He sounded vaguely familiar.

She was frantic to see who he was, but she could neither move nor speak.

The chitin began to dissolve. Aviva wished she could shut her eyes. The swirls of mako rising from the dead body reminded her too much of Zack and of everything that had happened afterwards. As if he had read her mind, her rescuer move to stand in front of her, blocking the sight from her view. With one hand he gripped her jaw, hard fingers forcing her lips apart so he could pour a remedy inside her.

"Shears," she gasped as soon as she could speak

Four years had passed since their last encounter, but he hadn't changed a bit; he was still just as tough and scruffy as she remembered, with the same tatty bandana tying back his unkempt hair. All things considered, she was very glad to see him.

"The one and only," he replied. His smile reminded her of Knox; there had been some damage to the tendons in his face and it didn't look pretty. His eyes were friendly enough, however.

"I should have guessed. You're here with _him_, aren't you? It was _you_ up by the reactor last night, wasn't it? Was he there too? Did he see me? Does he know I'm here?"

"Your cakehole's working all right, I see," said Shears. "Can you move your legs yet? Good. Let's get out of here. Where there's one of them things, there's usually more."

_The big fucker_, Reno had always called him. Shears had long legs and meaty hands, and he walked fast. Aviva, her muscles still stiff from the paralysis, had to work hard to keep up with him. He was dressed for the desert in a long-sleeved grey shirt, and khaki trousers tucked into solid boots. Where once he'd worn a bandolier of bullets across his chest, he now wore a coil of rope. Over the years the sun had bleached the colour from his eyes and baked a cross-hatching of lines into the back of his neck. Deep grooves ran down either side of his mouth. Aviva thought he looked grimmer than he also looked like a man who feared nothing, a man whom nothing could stop, a brick wall of a man. Shoot him, drown him, burn him, freeze him; he'd come right back at you, fists held high.

She wondered how old he was. Probably about the same age as Tseng, though he looked at least ten years older. If she remembered rightly, Commander Veld's daughter was three years older than Tseng, which would make her… well, somewhere in her mid-thirties, anyway. Ancient.

"It _was_ you by the reactor last night, wasn't it?" she said. "And you've been following me ever since, haven't you?"

"I been keeping an eye on you since yesterday afternoon, little Turk. Me and Pete was at the Gold Saucer station when you came through. You didn't see us, but we saw you - "

"Pete?_" _Aviva interrupted, aghast. "You call him _Pete_?"

"It's his name, ain't it? And I sure as hell ain't callin' him _Commander_ or whatever his bigshot title used to be. He ain't a Turk no more, little Turk. Better get used to it."

_That's all you know, Mr Ex-Avalanche_. _Once a Turk, always a Turk. He'll never stop being our Commander. _

"That Raven," she said. "On the hill last night. Did you kill it?"

"I put it out of its misery, yeah."

"It was stalking me. Why? Did Fuhito send it after me?"

"Eh, don't flatter yourself. You was just unlucky. He's fixed 'em so they always follow the scent of human blood. That one was after Dr Rui, but your scents got crossed."

"Dr Rui?"

"The woman you picked up off the railway tracks last night."

"Yes!" Aviva made a fist of triumph. "I _knew_ her name wasn't Wanda. So the Raven was after her? Why?"

"She stole something from Fuhito."

"What?"

"The last support materia."

Aviva's heart leapt. "He found it? Where? How?"

"Inside a sandworm. It was sheer dumb luck. He's been sending the Ravens out to kill sandworms, just to keep 'em fighting fit. Dr Rui was meant to be bringing it to us."

"She's working for you? I thought she was Avalanche."

Shears shook his head. "She works for herself, that one. She and Pete got some history between them; I don't know what it is and he ain't talking, so I ain't asked. She was the one who made contact with us. It seems he's got some information she wants. We was supposed to meet her yesterday afternoon in the Saucer car park. We was going to trade her materia for the information, and then we was going to put her on a bus and get her as far from Fuhito as possible. Pete bought the ticket and everything. She never showed up. _You_ did."

They rounded a bend as he said this, and found their path blocked by an old landslide. Further explanations had to wait while they climbed to the top of the rocks. From this vantage point Aviva could see the Chief, a small figure in the middle distance, walking steadily in the direction of some nearby hills, their yellow earth and grey rock sun-scorched and dry like everything in this landscape. Shears lifted a hand to shade his eyes. "She must of gone into those caves," he said.

"I'm amazed she got this far. She was half-dead when I found her last night."

"Yeah, well... she ain't normal, that one. Fuhito done some messin' around with her too. If them damn scientists would just stick to experimenting on each other, this world would be a happier place. C'mon, little Turk, let's keep moving. I want to get this over with before the rest of the goon squad shows up."

He moved off as he said this. Once again she had to trot to keep pace with him. "Shears, no one else is coming. I haven't been able to contact Tseng."

"The Woot doesn't know?"

"No, and don't call him that. I couldn't find a phone that worked."

"So that's what you were doing when you broke into the ticket booth."

Damn, he really_ had_ been following her every move. "Shears, does the Chief know there was a terrorist bombing in Midgar yesterday?"

He stopped and turned to face her. He looked shocked. "No," he said.

"Dozens of people were killed."

"I'm sorry to hear it."

"Was it Avalanche?"

Shears laughed incredulously. "Are you serious? God almighty, you _are_ serious. Girl, Avalanche ain't what it was when Elfe was in charge. Fuhito's arm don't stretch much further than his elbow these days. It certainly don't stretch as far as Midgar."

"It only takes one operative to plant a bomb."

"Fuhito's got a whole world to destroy. You think he's going to waste resources he aint't got blowing up one piddly little factory? And anyway, he don't got no operatives now, not human ones. Dr Rui was the last. It got too hard for him, finding volunteer recruits. You guys done too good a job making the Avalanche name stink."

"Us?" Aviva cried indignantly. "You did that to yourselves!"

Shears opened his mouth, then hesitated. The angry light in his eyes dimmed. "I don't want to fight with you, little Turk. I'm done with fighting over this. When I think of all the people that've died, on all sides, or no side, and for what? We ain't no closer to an answer. I'm truly sorry to hear about that bombing in Midgar, I really am. This hatred, it's like a sickness that's got into the world. But if you want to have a fight about who started it, Shinra or Avalanche or Wutai or whatever, you can fight with yourself because I just don't care any more. All I care about is Elfe. Get that straight, and we'll be good. Understood?"

"Shears, do you have a phone I could - "

"I don't have a phone. And if I did I wouldn't lend it to you."

"I just want to know if they're okay!"

Shears laughed, but his laughter was not unkind. "Of course they're okay. Jeez louise, girl. You lot are like cockroaches. Ain't _nothing_ can kill you, and god knows I've tried. Now come on - "

She caught at his arm. "Shears, please. If we know now where all the support materia are, we can - "

"No."

"But if Tseng knew, we could work together and - "

"Not until we get Elfe out. I ain't putting her at risk."

"Why don't you just go in and get her, if Fuhito is as weak as you say?"

"Hey." Shears stooped, bringing his eyes on a level with hers. "Ain't you been listening? I never said he was weak. He's focused on the endgame. Pete's old, little Turk, and I ain't no supersoldier. One Raven at a time I can handle. Maybe two if I'm lucky. Elfe's got twelve of 'em standing guard over her day and night. They don't get tired. They don't sleep. They're damn near impossible to kill. If me and him go charging in there and get ourselves killed, who's going to be left to save her?"

"But don't you see, that's why - "

"Not interested." He straightened up, towering over her. "Me and Pete will do this on our own, our way. Hey, look - " Shears raised a hand and waved. "He's seen us."

Veld had turned around and was standing there, watching them, waiting.

"Go on. I'll catch you up," said Shears.

.

**2. Midgar**

Cissnei was upstairs dozing on her bed, when Augusto's daughter knocked at the door to tell her one of her colleagues had arrived. The girl didn't give a name, and Cissnei didn't ask; she simply assumed. Fifteen minutes she kept him waiting while she fiddled with her hair and her lipstick, trying to erase five years' worth of loneliness and failure from her face. Her hands would not stop shaking.

Walking into Augusto's parlour, expecting Reno, and finding Rude instead - oh, that was a reality check.

Rude was far too much of a gentleman to say anything about the look on her face. He rationed his words to the business at hand: Rosalind and Knox taken prisoner; Tseng and Reno's narrow escape from the labs; Mink and Aviva missing. The speed with which their world had come crashing down around their ears would have horrified Cissnei, had she retained the ability to be shocked by anything. After what had happened to Zack, their own extermination seemed like the inevitable next step. Zack had known too much, and so did they; Zack had been hunted down relentlessly, and now they were going to share his fate.

Reno would have cracked some joke about her bad timing, which would have been his way of asking her if she regretted returning to Midgar. She could then have seized the opportunity to tell him that though she regretted many things, coming home, even if it was only to die, was not one of them. She briefly considered asking Rude to take him a message. But Rude was not her messenger boy. He - and Reno - and she herself, for that matter - had more urgent problems to deal with.

Though the situation looked grim, Rude sounded hopeful. He seemed to think that Rufus Shinra would save them. Cissnei expressed her doubts about that. Rude replied that Rufus had grown up: he was no longer the self-absorbed, cold-blooded adolescent she remembered. "A lot has happened," he added in his cryptic way. "You've been gone a while, Ciss. A lot has changed."

Inside her, a mean little voice was whining,_ Why can't everything be the way it used to be? All I wanted was to come home. _As if their imploding world was her fault, her punishment for being a bad girl. As if she was so important. Cissnei hated that voice.

He outlined the plan to her. Step one: find and rescue Knox and Roz. Two: use the support materia to lure Fuhito out of hiding. Three: kill Fuhito, save Veld and Elfe, and send Rufus back to his Old Man carrying Fuhito's head on a platter. With Avalanche destroyed and Rufus reinstated, Scarlet would lose most of her power, and the Turks could return to their rightful place guarding the throne, its heir, and its secrets.

"So what's my role?" she asked.

"Corneo," he said, and then added, "Sorry."

She wanted to ask him whose idea that had been. Tseng? Rufus Shinra? Reno? But then she thought of Knox and Roz in Scarlet's hands, and knew it would be petty to object. The men were not asking her to do anything she hadn't done a hundred times before, for far less honourable reasons.

"Are you in, or out?" said Rude.

It shamed her that he felt the need to ask. "In, of course," she said. "If the Don knows where they are, I'll get it from him. Whatever it takes, right? You can count on me."

Two hours later she was making her way down a crowded street in Wall Market, heading for the address Rude had given her. Of course the others would remember her, he had gallantly declared. Once she'd found them she could change into a dress and heels, tart herself up, put her game face on. _Your war-paint_, he'd called it, and she had loved him for that.

Right now, to avoid being molested on this first leg of her mission, she was wearing the same saggy boys' jeans and shapeless hoodie she had worn when Tseng smuggled her out of the Shinra building. The peak of her cap was pulled low to hide her face. She couldn't afford to be recognised, and she couldn't risk being propositioned, either. Normally when she was working her suit gave her all the protection she needed against unwanted advances and furtive gropes. Dressed like this, in civvies, she was fair game. It wasn't her personal safety she feared for: under her hoodie, she was packing two guns and a shuriken; she was more than a match for any would-be rapist. But the Turks had already been guilty of one breach of the peace in Wall Market, and she didn't want to be responsible for another. The Don's goodwill was hanging by a very thin thread right now.

She slouched through the crowd with her shoulders hunched and her hands shoved deep in her pockets, deliberately imitating the way she remembered Reno moving when he was a boy. 'Rubberlegs', she used to call him. She'd never seen anyone so skinny. In that first year, when they were rookies together, Mozo was always taking the mickey out of him: "Don't bother to pick the lock, we can slide Reno under the door." Even Natalya, who'd had a big soft spot for Reno and kept trying to feed him up, had once been heard to say, "That one, he's just a mouth and a pair of trousers with nothing inside them," which had made Cissnei laugh quietly to herself in the corner of the office where she sat bent over her work, because in those days Reno's shoulders were like a wire coat-hanger, and the way his suit hung off him, it really did sometimes look as if it was walking around with no body inside it. But he was fast even then: he outran her every time. And he was stronger than he looked. His strength had never ceased to surprise her, even after she'd known him for years.

Cissnei was pulled from these thoughts by the sight of a tall person coming out of a shop door just ahead of her. He - she? - immediately turned left and set off up the street. At once Cissnei was gripped by the conviction that she must on no account lose sight of this person. Something about him - no, _her_, definitely a her - seemed familiar. Maybe the hair? Long and straight, black streaked with silver, the woman wore it coiled on the top of her head in a messy bun.

The woman was light on her feet, like a trained fighter, and she walked fast. Cissnei quickened her own step. The name she wanted was on the tip of her tongue. Suddenly the woman stopped and turned her head sideways to check out a bar on the other side of the street, giving Cissnei a clear view of her profile: aquiline nose, high cheekbone, slanted eye. Beautiful, in a cold, hard way. Her name, Cissnei remembered, was Mink.

Mink crossed the street and went into the bar. Cissnei hung back, trying to piece the puzzle together. Rude had said they'd lost touch with Mink right after Zack died. She had set off in pursuit of Zack's companion, and that was the last they had seen of her. Did she know that Shinra had turned on them? It wasn't the kind of thing that got broadcast on the news: _Turks declared enemies of the people. _And she didn't look anxious or hunted. Yet she was wearing civvies: jeans, boots, a red roll-neck sweater. Was she deliberately incognito, or just off-duty, out to have a drink or two and maybe pick up a guy - or, for all Cissnei knew, a woman - with no idea of the danger she was in?

Mind made up, Cissnei pulled her cap even further down over her eyes and followed Mink inside the bar. The place was busy, the air smokey, the lights dim. She peered around, spotted Mink sitting at the far end of the bar, and edged her way through the crowd to park her behind on a neighbouring stool. The bartender set a whiskey on the rocks in front of Mink. She raised it to her lips, drank, and without turning her head said out of the corner of her mouth, "Scram, sonny."

"I'm Cissnei."

Mink's face stiffened. Her hand trembled, just a little. The ice in her tumbler made a clinking sound.

"You remember me?" said Cissnei.

Mink shot her one quick glance from the corner of her eye. She drained the whiskey, set the tumbler down on the countertop, and still without turning her face towards Cissnei, said, "Not here. It's too crowded. I don't want anyone else hurt. We'll go out back - but I'm warning you, I won't make it easy for you."

_Make what easy?_ Cissnei wondered. _What does she think I -_

"Oh, god," she exclaimed as understanding dawned, "No. Mink - no, it's not like that. I'm not here for _you."_

"Yeah right, I'm that stupid. Fuck you."

_Gee, thanks, colleague. _"Tseng doesn't - look, he didn't send me to sort you out, I swear."

She laid on a hand on Mink's arm, hoping to establish some sort of connection. Mink shrugged her off. "Don't touch me."

"I just saw you now in the street by chance, so I followed you in here to find out what happened to you. The guys told me you went missing. They're really worried about you."

"Yeah, sure they are. I'm everybody's best friend. Well, Cissss-nei, if you're not here to kill me, why not have a drink? My treat. Or you could have a drink and then kill me, how about that? Kill two birds with one stone. Get it?"

She was very drunk. How many other bars had she visited before coming in this one? Yet she'd been able to walk in a straight line when she crossed the road to get here. Cissnei remembered Reno telling her once, years ago, that Mink's head was so hard she could drink them all under the table and not even have a hangover the next morning. He had sounded almost in awe of her.

"Bartender," said Mink, "Bring me another. And one for my partner. She _says_ she's off-duty."

"I'll have a club soda," Cissnei told the barman.

"Hunh," sniffed Mink. "Lightweight. I'm pissed as a fart and I could still wipe the floor with your arse, so don't - stint yourself on my account."

"I'm on a mission," Cissnei said, as forcefully as possible while keeping her voice low. "It's nothing to do with you. I have no orders concerning you, Mink. Though I know Tseng would like to know where you are - "

"So, call him. Call him and tell him you found me. See what he says. And while you're at it, tell him I did it. Tidied up those loose ends. Zack's friend. Everything's sorted now. And you can tell him I quit."

Cissnei was about to say, _Don't be stupid, you can't quit_ - but that had been true in the old days, under Commander Veld. She didn't know if it was still true now.

Mink clearly had no idea of the disaster that overtaken their department. Cissnei would have to break the news, and she would have to choose her words carefully. Drunks were unpredictable at the best of times, and Mink was practically a stranger. She racked her brains trying to dredge up what she knew about this woman. Someone - Roz? - had said Mink was a very private person, not much for talking. Maybe that was when she was sober? Reno had called her humourless. He'd said she didn't know the meaning of the word fun. He'd also said she had fists like sledgehammers and had once knocked Rude right over the ropes in a friendly sparring match, so perhaps she hadn't been boasting when she said she could take Cissnei down. Cissnei really hoped they wouldn't have to put it to the test.

She remembered something else Reno had said. Mink was good was children. He'd said it like it was a surprising thing. She could see why, now.

"You should call Tseng yourself," she said. "All he wants is to know that you're unharmed."

"Unharmed?" Mink laughed scornfully. "That's a good one."

She took her drink from the barman's hand and threw it back in one gulp. He caught Cissnei's eye, asking a silent question. She shook her head, infinitesimally. He nodded, set down her soda, and moved away to the other end of the bar.

Mink scooped an ice cube from the tumbler and put it in her mouth. For a moment she sucked on it thoughtfully. "You know," she said around the mouthful of ice, "I really thought I could do this job. I really did. I thought for sure I'd moved past the point where anything could get to me. For a while everything was dandy, but then, I don't know, I got _involved._ It crept up on me. I started wanting to put things right. But the thing is, I don't know what's right and what's wrong any more, and I'm beginning to wonder if I ever did. I can't go by my gut. I'm paralysed with indecision. I can't even make up my mind to get out of this godforsaken city."

Mink crunched up the ice cube and swallowed, then turned to stare at Cissnei. "You got away," she said. "Why the hell did you come back? You must be a real sucker for punishment."

"I was sent away on the Chief's orders. I came back because Tseng told me to."

"Ah, Tseng," said Mink. "Tseng, Tseng, Tseng. That man should have been the Emperor of Wutai. He'd have given Shinra a run for their fucking blood money. Why is this world so arse-fucking-backward?"

The bartender was giving them an odd look. "Keep your voice down," Cissnei whispered. "Listen to me. We're in terrible danger."

Mink sneered. "Newsflash."

"No, _listen_. The President ordered a raid on our floor last night. He was looking for Rufus. Tseng and Reno were taken prisoner - it's okay, they escaped, but the Turks are persona non grata now. The army is after us. There's a price on all our heads, yours included."

"You say it like you didn't see it coming."

_Yes, okay,_ thought Cissnei, y_ou're angry and bitter, I get it. Now, can we please be practical for a minute? _"Do you know where the other girl is? The little one with the knives?"

"Veev? No idea. Isn't she with Reno?"

Cissnei hesitated. Something about Mink's question felt off - not so much the words themselves, but more the way she said them. She seemed to be implying that the knife girl and Reno spent all their time hanging out together, as if they were best partners, bosom buddies, yet Cissnei could not recollect a single occasion when Reno had so much as mentioned the girl's name. She had only the vaguest memory of the girl herself, a small, waifish, earnest person with big dark eyes. Hardly a threatening image, yet Cissnei suddenly felt uneasy.

"If we knew where she was," she said, "I wouldn't be asking."

"Well, that's - odd."

"Why?"

"She's his little shadow. Always tagging around after him. It would be tragic if it wasn't so cute."

_Tragic? _Cissnei's uneasiness intensified. "What do you mean?"

"Our poor wee Veev wears her heart on her sleeve - hey, did you hear that? Veev, sleeve, they rhyme - "

"Are you saying there's something going on between Reno and the knife girl?"

Mink smiled, full of malice. "Just because you didn't want him, did you think nobody else would?"

_You had your chance. You threw it away. That train's pulled out of the station; you didn't make it in time._

"But she's just a kid - "

"A kid?" Mink laughed. "You _have_ got some catching up to do, partner."

"You mean he -

"Hah, _him_? He's an idiot. He's got no idea. No idea. And even if he did it wouldn't do either of them any good. He'd never been the same since you screwed him over, Cisss-nei. I mean he's always been a dick but he used to be a happy dick, until you stuck your little shuriken in and cut the heart right out of him. Another one to add to your collection, _partner. _You must have quite the museum by now."

_I don't have to sit here and take this_, Cissnei told herself. _I came in here to fucking __help__ this bitch._

And yet some force kept her in her seat. "Why do you hate me?" she whispered.

"It's nothing personal. I hate everything."

"I'm leaving." But she made no move to go.

Mink remained silent a moment, staring into her empty glass, thinking. Then she said, "I keep asking myself: who's to blame? The army? Those guys were just doing their job. It's easy to forget Zack wasn't the only one who died. He must have taken at least two dozen of them with him. Probably more. And the irony is..." She laughed, a ugly, joyless sound. "They were doing _us_ a favour. We'd have had to kill him if the army hadn't found him first. Can't have dangerous lab specimens running around on the loose. I don't know if we could have made it any easier for him. It was a bad death, Cisss-nei."

"Shut up."

"Oh, you don't want to hear it? Tough, because I want to tell. Blood loss was what killed him. Not quick. Not easy. His alterations meant his wounds kept healing. By the end there was nothing left in his veins but mako. Can you imagine what that must have felt like? His veins were running liquid fire. He was so full of mako he evaporated, _pfft - "_

Mink snapped her fingers; Cissnei jumped at the sound.

"Your jealousy poisoned him," said Mink.

"That's crazy. You're crazy."

"You're the one who told him about the Cetra. That's why Veld let Hojo have him."

"That's not true," Cissnei cried.

Several nearby heads turned to look at them. Cissnei dropped her voice and whispered hoarsely, "He saw what Sephiroth did at Nibelheim. That's why the Chief couldn't save him. You _know_ that."

"All witnesses to corporate malfeasance must be eliminated." The whiskey was burning in Mink's eyes. "They don't like people to know their secrets. The Cetra was a secret. Veld was hoping Zack would succeed where Tseng had failed. But you didn't want to let her have him. If you couldn't have him, no one could."

_Is that what they all think? _Cissnei wondered. _That it's my fault?_

For years she had believed Zack was dead. These last few months, since learning the truth about Nibelheim, she'd had moments when she blamed herself for what had happened to him, terrible moments in the middle of sleepless nights when a voice that sounded just like Mink whispered accusingly in her ear, _this is all your fault. _ But if Cissnei's years in exile had taught her anything, it was the necessity of being honest with herself. It was true that she had tried to poison Zack against Aerith. It was true that she had disobeyed the orders of her superiors, deliberately, and with malice aforethought, in order to tell Zack something it was not safe for him to know.

And he had turned away from her to look longingly over the sea, towards Midgar. _Yeah_, he'd said. _Aerith really is one of a kind. _

In the small hours of the night Cissnei could flatter herself that she might have made a difference to his fate. By the cold light of day, however, she saw clearly just how small a part she had played in his story. Nothing she did, or said, or failed to do, could have saved - or damned - Zack. She simply was not that important. He had had a brief crush on her, nothing more. Older woman, younger man: a case of puppy love. He had wanted to stay friends, of course, because Zack was Zack. But she hadn't been much of a friend to him, let alone the love of his life.

And what Cissnei had come to realise, through five years of doing nothing much but reflecting on her mistakes, was that Zack had not been the great love of her life, either.

Oh, she had wanted him to be. He'd seemed so different from all the other men she'd slept with. Different, especially, from Lazard. Zack's innocence was something exotic. She had lost her head over a fumbling country boy with fresh skin and big hands who didn't realise how much he needed a woman like her to to guide him safely through the big bad world of Midgar. She had longed to protect him, but had only succeeded in making him feel like a child. After the first few passion-fueled, shirt-ripping encounters, the sex hadn't even been particularly good. Pride had forced her to lie to Reno about that; she didn't want to look like even more of a loser than she was already. Yet somehow the lacklustre sex had seemed, at the time, proof that her love for Zack was the real thing, noble and pure like Zack himself.

She would never deny that she was partly to blame for his death. Everyone whose life had touched his was partly to blame, even - or especially - the ones who had loved him most. Angeal, who could see the quality of Zack's soul, should have failed him out of SOLDIER and sent him home, where he belonged, instead of promoting him to a position that, for someone like Zack, could only lead to disillusion and disaster. As for Aerith - she had lied to him, lied and fudged the truth, in order to keep her dream intact.

"He had a right to know," Cissnei told Mink. "That wasn't why I did it, and it's no excuse, but it's still true. She should have told him herself. If she couldn't trust him, then she didn't deserve him."

"And it was your place to decide that?"

Cissnei leaned forward so that Mink could hear her clearly. "Now look here," she said, "I've served my time for what I did. Tseng made the decision to recall me to active service, and it's him I answer to. Not you. You barely knew Zack, so stop acting like this is your personal tragedy. Yes, he died and we couldn't stop it. Does that mean we should all give up now? Would that fix things? I tried everything I could to save him, and yes, I failed, but_ it wasn't my fucking fault. _

"Zack was not a kid. He wasn't stupid. He knew the odds he was up against. He didn't have to come back to Midgar. He came because Aerith is here. That was his choice. It was the same when he first came to Midgar. He chose to work for Shinra. He could have dropped out after Banora if he didn't like what he saw. He wasn't even a First then. Plenty of other SOLDIERs were defecting, and not all of them went with Genesis. He probably should have left after Angeal died. Tseng liked him; Tseng could have figured a way out for him. But Zack _chose_ to stay. Because he had made a you even know what that means? Look at you, sitting here drinking yourself stupid because somebody died on your watch. Oh boo hoo, poor me, I hate everything, I quit."

Mink stared at her. "I thought you loved him."

"And Zack loved Angeal. Did he blame himself when Angeal died? Of course he did; god, he was the one who had to kill him. Did he go out and get rat-arsed and rage-quit because Angeal was dead? Like hell he did: Zack was too good for that. He worked twice as hard as he had before so he could be worthy of Angeal's sword. Zack was no quitter. And neither am I."

Cissnei paused for breath. Mink remained speechless.

" And neither are you," Cissnei added. "Turks don't quit. Now, I can see you don't like me much, and I'm not so crazy about you either, but you're still my sister, and I am not walking out of here without you. We have work to do. Scarlet's taken Knox and Roz prisoner."

The shock of this news produced exactly the effect Cissnei hoped for. Mink reeled and gasped out loud, as if a bucket of icy water had been poured on her head. Cissnei put a hand on her arm to keep her steady, and this time, Mink did not brush her off. "No," she whispered. "Rosalind? Knox? When? How?"

"Oh, we're going to get them back, don't worry. I'll explain everything. First, though, we're going to order you a large black coffee, and you will drink it all. Then we'll talk."

* * *

_Kept home from work by blizzard, given chance to update. Huzzah for Snow Days! And thanks to you all of you, readers, reviewers, followers, for your patience. _


	69. Daughter, Mother, Sister

**CHAPTER 69: DAUGHTER, MOTHER, SISTER**

* * *

Aviva walked steadily forwards. The sun beat down on her head; the wind blew dust in her face, and she blinked it away. If her eyes started watering, he might think she was crying.

He had disguised himself as an old man. She could not comprehend his appearance in any other way. Over a black polo-neck shirt he wore a beige jacket, the sleeves rolled back to display one hairy, sunburnt arm and one pale miracle of bio-engineering. The nap of his tan corduroy trousers had been rubbed bare at the knees. On his feet he wore his Turk boots. Aviva's heart cleaved to those Turk boots. She kept her eyes fixed on their toe-caps, afraid of what she might see if she dared to look into his face.

Forever and always he was still the Chief, no matter what Shears might say, and his physical presence had lost none of its power to intimidate. She stood at attention, chin in, shoulders back, heart hammering against her ribs, painfully conscious, as only he could make her feel, of her smallness, her inadequacy for the job, her willful disobedience. She wasn't needed here. He hadn't asked for her help. He had told Shears to keep her out of the way.

The warm weight of his living hand pressed on her shoulder. "Aviva."

"Yes, sir?"

Was he going to make her leave? Order her to keep this meeting a secret? She would have to obey. She did not know how she could bear it.

"Look at me," he said.

She raised her eyes as far as his mouth. He was smiling. "So," he said, "Aviva who-always-lands-on-her-feet, it's you. I knew this day would come, but I always assumed Tseng would be the one to track me down. You look well, my girl. And you've done a fine job. Congratulations."

An awful thought struck her. Did he think she had come to arrest him? "Oh, Commander Veld, sir! I'm not here on the President's orders. We've all been looking for you, sir, all over the planet, ever since you left. Whatever you want us to do, just say the word, sir, and we'll do it. All we want to do is help you, sir."

"_Help_ me?"

"We're still your Turks, sir. We don't care what the President says."

Shears choose that moment to join them, walking up behind her and greeting the Chief with an "All right, Pete?" Their eyes met above her head. Some exchange took place that she couldn't see. Shears said, "What did you expect? You trained her."

"Humph," said the Chief. "Did you fill her in?"

"Enough."

"Will there be further complications?"

"No. Just the three of us."

"I see. Well, Veev -" He gave her shoulder a little squeeze - "Our target has gone into that cave. Do you have your torch?"

"Of course, sir." Aviva pulled out her special issue army knife to show him that the powerful pen-light was working. The Chief grunted his approval. "Then let's not waste any more time."

The path up the hill to the cave was strewn with fallen rocks, some as big as cars. Dead tree branches covered the mouth of the cave. The Chief pushed these aside and went in; Aviva followed; Shears brought up the rear.

Almost at once she felt the temperature drop. The air was damp and stale; she could taste decay on her tongue. The beam of the Chief's torch searched the darkness and found a passageway. One by one they moved deeper into the cave, feeling their way along with their left hands pressed against the rock wall and their right hands holding their torches.

After about five minutes of walking single file, the passage opened out into a cavern, high and deep like the nave of a church or the core of a reactor, suffused with an unearthly light. Patches of mako-coloured, bioluminescent algae coated the rock walls, their green glow reflecting off a pool of water so black it was like a mirror. When a drop of water fell from one of the stalagtites overhead and broke the surface of the pool, its echo rang like a silver bell, and ripples of light danced through the cavern.

Overwhelmed by so much strange beauty, Aviva hugged herself. Everything felt unreal. The Chief turned his torch upwards; she followed it with her eyes. The ridged limestone ceiling made her think of Mr Rufus's cat, its mouth open in a mighty yawn. Those dripping stalagtites looked just like teeth. This whole situation was already so bizarre, it wouldn't stretch the imagination far to believe that she, Shears and the Chief been swallowed alive by an enormous dragon -

But dragons were not indigenous to Corel. Land worms were the real danger here. This thought recalled Aviva to practical matters. She drew her gun, and wondered if either of the two men were carrying ice materia.

"Shalua's not here," said the Chief. "There must be another way out."

Aviva found it first, a hole like a little doorway half-hidden under an outcropping of rock. The imprint of a boot was clearly visible in the sand. "Over here," she called to the other two. Stooping, she crawled through the hole, which soon widened into a twisting, pitch-dark tunnel. The rock underfoot was wet and slimy. Wishing she had worn her gloves, Aviva gripped her torch between her teeth, laid a hand on each side of the tunnel to steady herself, and cautiously made her way forward.

The thrill of the chase was mounting in her veins. _This is it_, she told herself: _the reason I was born. _Her whole life had been lived for this day. She had found the Chief, and in a moment she was going to capture the Avalanche operative and take possession of the last materia. Thanks to her efforts, Fuhito would be exposed and neutralised. Avalanche would no longer pose a threat. The Chief would be saved. Elfe would be saved. The world would be saved. And it would all be because of her. She might be small, but she could do great things. Everyone would be amazed... well, except for Reno, maybe. He had believed in her right from the start -

"Shinra bitch!"

From out of the darkness an object came flying at her face. Aviva cried out and dodged to one side; the torch fell from her mouth and hit the ground, but did not break. By its light she glimpsed a giant shadow, arm poised to throw again. She dropped and rolled sideways, snatching the torch up as she went, and heard a rock smash against the cave wall.

"Stay still, damn you!" Dr Rui cried.

Flipping her torch, Aviva trained its beam in the direction of Dr Rui's voice. As she did so, a third rock struck the ground just in front of her nose, scattering sand across her face. Aviva blinked the grit from her eyes. When she opened them again, she saw her prisoner, fist raised, half-hidden behind a stalagmite taller than she was. Her face looked oddly contorted. Whatever was in her fist was giving off a soft glow. _It's the materia_, Aviva realised. Dr Rui appeared to be trying to cast a spell with it. But nothing happened.

"Useless!" she cried.

She hurled the materia at Aviva, who dropped her gun to catch it. Dr Rui immediately stooped to arm herself with another rock. "Don't you come any closer, Shinra bitch," she warned.

"Dr Rui, no one wants to hurt you."

"Liar. Turk. I trusted you!"

"You can trust me. Shears has told me everything."

"Him?" Dr Rui laughed. "He doesn't know _anything - "_

"Aviva?" The Chief had come up behind her, silent on his Turk-shod feet.

"You!" Dr Rui threw the rock at him before Aviva could intervene. It glanced off his shoulder; he grunted in pain. Aviva moved at once to stand between her Chief and the crazy woman. Her body would be his shield. "Don't you try that again," she shouted. "I don't want to have to hurt you."

"Shalua," said the Chief, rubbing his shoulder. "You wanted to talk. Let's talk."

"Get back, you devil!"

"Don't talk to him like that," said Aviva.

"Shut up, Turk! Thief! Liar!"

"You don't understand," said Aviva. "We're here to help you -"

"Liar. Liar. That's what _he_ said, when he took her."

She felt the Chief's hand on her arm, nudging her aside. "Let me talk to her," he whispered. Reluctantly she yielded, bending to pick up her gun. If Dr Rui attacked the Chief again, she would kill her without hesitation.

"I got you your damned materia," said Dr Rui. "Now you tell me, where's my sister?"

"She's dead, Shalua. I'm sorry -"

"No!"

He ducked, and the rock went flying over his head to shatter against the cave wall. Aviva raised her pistol. He grabbed the muzzle. "Do not," he ordered her.

The air moved behind her. She felt the warmth of a third presence: Shears had joined them.

"I don't believe you," Dr Rui cried. "If she were dead, I'd know. I'd feel it. She's my _sister_. Tell me where she is. Tell me. You promised."

"I promised you answers."

"You lying bastard. You tricked me."

" It was quick. She didn't suffer. She fell asleep -"

With a howl of anguish Dr Rui doubled over, sinking to her knees.

Aviva took a step towards her. Shears' hand immediately clamped itself round her arm. "Don't interfere."

"She was nine years old," Dr Rui cried.

"I'm sorry," the Chief repeated.

"She never did anything to Shinra. She never hurt anyone. She was just a little girl. And you took her. You just_ took _her. You had no right."

" I'm sorry."

"No you're not." Dr Rui raised her head to look at him. "You don't know what sorry means. You don't care what you do. Lie, cheat, kill, it doesn't matter to you. Only Elfe matters. Everyone else can go to hell. I should have left that materia with Fuhito."

"If you would condemn my daughter to death for her father's crimes, then how are you any better than me?"

"I don't know. I don't care. I just want my sister. I couldn't care less whether Elfe lives or dies. No, that's not true. I hope she does die. I hope she dies slowly and painfully and I hope you have to watch her die. I hope you have to suffer what you've made me suffer. Then maybe you'll begin to understand what kind of devil you are."

"How do you know what he's suffered?" Aviva demanded.

Behind her Shears whispered, "You're not helping."

"Shalua," said the Chief, advancing a step towards her, "This place is dangerous. You've been sick, and the Ravens are hunting you." He took another step. "I don't expect you to trust me, but you know you can trust Shears. He wouldn't let me harm you. Please, come with us." He held out his hand.

Her face twisted in disgust. "Get away from me!"

Aviva felt as if the earth were moving beneath her feet, shifting, giving way; as if she had wandered onto thin ice, and the cracks were widening -

A rumbling filled the cave.

"Earthquake," cried Shears.

But the Chief said, "No - "

The ground exploded. "Get back!" Shears shouted. Instinctively Aviva curled into a ball, protecting her head with her arms. Sand and splinters of rock flew everywhere, and a terrible metallic rattling, like tank treads, raked the air. Peering between her fingers, Aviva watched in horror as two tonnes of land worm reared up through the hole it had punched through the cave floor, carrying Dr Rui with it.

Corel landworms had no eyes, and no real brain, either; despite its size, the creature was little more than an armoured digestive tract. Its head was all mouth, round like a plug-hole, ringed with rows of shark-like teeth, one of which had snagged on the back of Dr Rui's jacket. She kicked and twisted, but could not work herself free. Irritated by her struggles, the worm thrashed its head from side to side, trying to shake her off.

Aviva got to her feet. Those greeny-gold scales were as tough as mythril; bullets would not pierce them. She holstered her pistol, and reached for her knives. The gaps between the scales along the lateral line were the places to aim for. Shears began to draw his mako gun.

The Chief was faster than both of them. An ice spell had already left his hand. Its cold energy froze the ichor in the worm's tubules; shards of ice pierced whatever primitive organ served it for a heart. A spasm passed through its ridges of muscle. The mouth parts snapped shut, trapping Dr Rui's arm up to the elbow. For a few seconds the dying worm continued to loom over them, swaying drunkenly, while she fought to free herself. Then it crashed - they all jumped backwards - and its dead weight started slithering back down the hole it had come up from, dragging Shalua Rui with it.

She shot them an anguished look. The Chief flung himself forward in an attempt to grab her ankle, but the shifting ground pulled his feet out from under him. Instantly he was sucked into the vortex of sand that the wormhole had become. Aviva leapt to save him. As she did so, she felt Shears' hand brush her own, and knew that he had tried to stop her. Too late: she was already beyond his reach, spiralling downwards, eyes screwed shut, burning lungs holding on to a last gasped breath, sand filling her ears and nostrils as she fell.

Before she had time to wonder how far she was going to fall or think about what would happen when she hit the bottom, her feet struck something hard. She tumbled forward, and was caught by a pair of strong arms. The rain of sand had almost stopped. "You're safe," said the Chief.

She took a deep breath, shook the sand from her face, and opened her eyes. The only light came from the Chief's torch, which he had somehow managed to keep hold of as he fell. He directed its beam at her hands. "The materia," he said. "Have you got it?"

"Yes." Her fingers had locked around the crystal sphere.

A second beam of light cut through the darkness. Aviva looked up. Shears was shining his torch through a large hole about twenty feet above their heads. "Pete? Little Turk?"

"We're here," said the Chief.

"You all right?"

"Where's Dr Rui?" said Aviva.

"I think so," the Chief called up to Shears. "A bit bruised. No bones broken."

"Bloody miracle," said Shears.

"Sir," said Aviva, "Where's Doctor Rui?"

"The worm took her."

By now Aviva's eyes had become accustomed to the dim light. She could see that they had fallen into a vast underground canyon, and by some incredible luck - or miracle, as Shears had said - they had landed on this rocky ledge, maybe fifteen feet wide. From far below them came the sound of rushing water. Lying flat on her belly, she crept to the brink of the ledge and looked down, but the canyon was so deep that the river was lost in fathoms of inky darkness.

"Dr Rui? Dr Rui?" Her eyes searched in vain for some sign of life. "Are you there? Can you hear me?"

The Chief said, "I couldn't hold her."

To have fallen all that way and be lying there injured, conscious, in pain, with no hope of rescue, did not bear thinking about. _Please_, thought Aviva,_ let her be dead._

"Come away from the edge," said the Chief. "You don't know how stable it is."

Obediently she crawled backwards. She had no intention of trying to stand upright. Every instinct was telling her to stay low, spread herself out like a spider and _cling_.

"Listen," Shears called down to them, "I'm going to get you out, right? But it ain't going to be easy. This whole floor'll break apart if I put any weight on it. Look around. Can you see another way?"

The Chief shone his torch up and down, back and forth. Aviva sat up on her knees and followed the beam with her eyes. "There," she pointed.

About ten feet below them and a little to the left was another ledge, a narrow lip of rock jutting from a cleft in the canyon wall. A runnel of water flowed out from this cleft and tumbled over the rock ledge to the river below. That water must be coming from somewhere, which meant the cleft must lead somewhere. But would it be big enough for a man to fit through? If they climbed down onto the next ledge only to find that the cleft was a dead end, they would be out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Shears said he would check it out. "If it's no go, we'll think of something else. I'll be back. You sit tight."

The light from his torch vanished. They heard his footsteps fade. The darkness seemed worse than before. Aviva turned to the Chief. He was trying to sit down, but his movements were awkward, painful. He had lied to Shears: he was not all right. "Sir - you're hurt?"

"It's nothing serious. My ankle's sprained. I think I may have cracked a couple of ribs. But we'll soon fix that." He reached into his jacket, drew his gun. From one of its slots he popped a Cure materia and handed it to her. "Would you?"

The green light flared on the cavern walls. She saw the pain leave his face.

"That's my girl," he smiled.

As always, one word of praise from him was enough to tie her tongue. She looked down at her hands - her skillful, competent Turk hands - overcome with emotions she did not know how to express.

"I think we're going to be here a while," he said.

"That's all right, sir."

"Shears will find a way out. Don't worry."

Aviva hesitated. "I'm worried about Dr Rui, sir."

"Don't be. She's dead. No one could survive a fall like that."

"What if she's lying down there unconscious?"

"Well, and what if she is?" His voice took on a sterner edge. "I'm surprised at you, Aviva. You ought to be tougher than this by now. There's nothing you can do for her, so put her out of your mind."

"Can you put her out of your mind, sir?"

"Don't take me as your standard, child."

"But can you?"

"When I was your age, yes, I could. Latterly, I find I'm losing the knack."

His answer troubled her. Weren't people supposed to get _less _emotional as they got older? More hardened, more cynical? Old people had seen it all. The Chief had seen it all ten times over. If pain and death and unfairness bothered him more now than it had when he was twenty, what hope was there for her?

Something else was troubling her, too. "When I found Dr Rui on the railway tracks last night, she called me Shelke. I think she thought I was her sister."

" The sunstroke scrambled her brain." He paused. "You look nothing like Shelke."

"Is she really dead, sir? That little girl?"

" I have no definite proof. But if she's not actually dead, she's as good as. You understand."

A chill snaked up Aviva's spine. "What happened to her?"

"I don't know the exact details. She was Psych Department talent. They wanted her for the pre-Cog program. That project was classified, so when I took her I let Shalua think we wanted her for SOLDIER."

"But there are no women in SOLDIER."

"No. Women... have never reacted well to the treatment. But Shalua didn't know that. She was a child herself. They were orphans. They'd just lost their mother to cancer. I don't know what happened to the father; he was never in the picture. The mother used to work for Shinra, as a technician, over in Rocket Town. After she died the company became the girls' legal guardian. There were no other relatives. We'd already ear-marked them for testing; their school reports were very interesting. Shalua was a bright, bright girl, but the tests didn't reveal any skills that were immediately useful to us, so we packed her off to boarding school. The younger one, though...her results were off the chart. I delivered her to the Psych Department myself, and then I washed my hands of her."

Complete the mission; write the report; close the file; move on. There was always another mission waiting.

"I didn't spare her another thought until a couple of years later, when I went to one of Reeve's parties and ran into some chap from Psych. I don't recall his name. He told me the little girl I'd brought them had suffered a rare reaction to a routine medical procedure and gone into an irreversible coma. The usual Shinra cocktail party chit-chat," he grimaced. "Science claimed the body, and all her records were erased from the company files."

Aviva knew how that worked. She had done it herself many times.

Veld said, "She had potential. We exploited it. Nobody wanted her to die. But it's true, we accepted the risk. In the end she was just one more small casualty in the great war against - what? Whatever it was we thought we were fighting. Darkness. Ignorance and superstition. Fear of the future. Is that why we're so willing to exploit children, Aviva? Because secretly we fear the future they bring? A future that belongs to them, and not to us?"

The question was a real one. He was waiting for her to reply. "I - don't know, sir."

"You're being very quiet."

"I'm just listening, sir."

"Just listening." The Chief made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "Tseng used to do that. He didn't like disagreeing with me to my face. It made him uncomfortable. So when he thought I was wrong, he'd just sit there and say nothing. But what a weight of judgement was in that silence."

"I'm not judging you, sir."

He studied her face. "No. You wouldn't dream of it, would you? You're a good girl. Now close your eyes; I'm going to switch off this torch. We need to save the batteries."

Darkness smothered them. Aviva felt herself floating in dead space. She fought to control her rising panic.

"Let me have the materia," said the Chief.

Her fingers wouldn't budge; she had to blow across the knuckles to loosen their grip. As her hand opened, light returned: the materia gave off a weak but steady glow, pale yellow like candlelight. She passed it to the Chief. He cradled the sphere in his overlapped palms, staring into its depths as if he could read a fortune there. Aviva waited respectfully for him to speak again.

At length he said, "How is he, your Boss? Is he - is he well?"

"Oh yes, sir, he's fine, very - _leaderly_." Aviva wasn't sure if 'leaderly' was a real word, but it was the first that came to mind when she thought of Tseng.

"Leaderly," echoed the Chief. "Hmm. I like it. I hope he didn't come down too hard on Roz and Rude for letting me slip through their fingers. I put them in an impossible position."

What was he talking about? Her mind drew a blank; then she remembered that the Chief had crossed paths with Roz and Rude on the same day that Zack Fair had escaped from Nibelheim. So much had happened since then. She was accustomed to thinking of the Chief as all-seeing, all-wise, yet he probably knew nothing about what his Turks had been going through these last six months. Had anyone told him yet that Zack Fair was dead? Or that Midgar had been bombed again last night?

"It's been a long time, hasn't it?" said the Chief. "Four years. Nearly five. Young Rufus must be - what, twenty-two, now? I hear strange rumours about him. People say he's dead. That's not true, is it? Very careless of Tseng if it is."

"Oh - no, it's not true, sir."

"Hm. He's still your prisoner?"

Aviva hesitated. How could she best describe the transformation that had taken place in Rufus Shinra during the years of his confinement? "Well, sir - not really. It's more like... He's practically a member of the department now."

The Chief smiled. "That boy," he said, "Never fails to exceed my expectations." Lifting his head, he saw the look on her face. His eyes narrowed. His smile faded. "What is it?" he said. " Something bad has happened. Tell me."

Aviva took a deep breath, wondering where to begin.

* * *

As soon as Mink was functionally sober, she led Cissnei through the back streets of Wall Market and down a side alley to the bar owned by Cavour's cousin. The other Turks greeted Mink with fierce hugs and cries of joy, and then turned to Cissnei with more welcome in their faces than she had dared to hope for. They all remembered her. _I'm notorious_, she supposed.

She remembered them, too. From childhood the Chief had drilled into her techniques for putting names to faces. People were flattered when you remembered their names; it made them think you liked them, and so they warmed to you. Getting people to open up was part of her job. Nevertheless, she allowed Mink to make the introductions. It felt like a necessary ritual: the ceremony of opening a door.

Skeeter was the blond one, with the disarming smile and the tattoo on the nape of his neck. The swarthy, dark-eyed one was Cavour, or Two-Guns, whom Cissnei remembered chiefly for his good looks and his air of quiet menace. He projected an uncompromising intelligence, and struck her as the kind of man who would go to any lengths for a friend - but god help you if he became your enemy.

The woman's name was Hunter. Her posture - shoulders back, chin up - and her keen hazel eyes reminded Cissnei of a thoroughbred chocobo, highly trained, eager to race, pawing at the starting line.

And then there was the one Cissnei had never seen before, the young man with the reddish-brown hair, Tys. The one Reno had tried to drown in the fountain. He stood by Hunter's side, his arm round her waist and his hand resting, maybe just a smidgen possessively, on her hip. Cissnei remembered the touch of a similar hand on the small of her own back, and how she had told him to take it away. Hunter and Tys looked comfortable with each other's bodies. They had been lovers for a while now; Cissnei could see that. Was this another reform Tseng had introduced, another rule revoked? He would not tolerate open disobedience, and she could not imagine that any of these new, young Turks would dare defy him.

Their faces were friendly, and she was glad to be with them, but they were not Knox and Roz. "I'm on a mission," she explained. "I'm going to need a dress."

Skeeter's eyes lit up.

One of Cavour's many cousins owned a boutique around the corner. Skeeter volunteered to take her there. He turned out to be a hard taskmaster. Cissnei would have made do with the third dress she tried on, but Skeeter refused to be satisfied with anything less than perfection. After much searching, he pulled from the rails a figure-hugging gold lame in a shade to match her eyes, slit up the thigh "for kicking," he said with his irresistible smile. Cissnei looked at her reflection and saw that he had chosen well. "You could have been a personal shopper," she told him.

He laughed. "I could have been a lot of things. With this job, I get to be a little bit of all of them."

They bought matching shoes and perfume and combs for her hair, and then returned to the bar, entering through a back door that led to the kitchen. A blond woman in a short skirt was standing at the sink, arms deep in sudsy water. Cissnei thought her heart would burst for joy. "Roz!" she cried. The woman twisted round, scowling. "Laney?" said Cissnei.

"Hunh." The girl put her nose in the air. "Look what the cat dragged in."

Cissnei could hardly believe her eyes. The last time she'd seen Rosalind's sister, Elena had been a little girl with a pudding-bowl haircut, scratched knees, and dirt all over her face - a real tomboy, the complete opposite of her poised, professional big sister. Now, the resemblance was uncanny... Except that grown-up Elena still had a look of wildness about her. And sexiness. That was new.

"What are you doing here?" said Cissnei

"Uh - working?" said Elena sarcastically. "Some of us have real jobs to do."

"Why aren't you at school?" Cissnei was trying to remember how old Roz's sister was now. Seventeen? Eighteen?

Elena's eyes flashed. "That's none of your business. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm not paid to stand around gossiping with the riff-raff." She bent down to pick up a crate of beers and stomped off into the bar. Cissnei would have followed her, but Skeeter caught her arm.

"We haven't told her about Roz," he said.

"Why is she here?" Elena was supposed to be studying at the Academy in Junon. She was their star pupil. Roz had always been so proud.

"She dropped out of school. I dunno why. That girl's got major issues. Roz was doing her nut. They really look alike, don't they? But don't tell her that. She's pretty touchy about the whole kid sister thing."

"But why is she _here?" _What lucky coincidence had brought her to a bar run by a Turk's cousin, was what Cissnei meant.

"Eh, half the Market's related to Cavs. And a good thing too. She was wandering round Wall Market like a lamb to the slaughter; she could easily have fallen into Corneo's clutches, and she's so damn feisty it would _not_ have ended well. I hear he likes it when they put up a fight. Oh, sorry," he added, a pink flush of embarrassment staining his cheeks. He'd obviously forgotten about her mission.

"It's all right. Did you say you haven't told her about her Roz?"

"We agreed we wouldn't say anything until we knew one way or the other. That girl's such a hothead, we're afraid she might rush off and do something crazy. It's tough, though. If - well, you know - I hate to think how that kid's going to feel when she remembers how she bad-mouthed her sister. I know she wouldn't say those things if she knew."

Cissnei took his hand and gave it a squeeze. "We will find Roz," she assured him. "We'll find them both. Corneo will talk, trust me. Now, I guess I'd better go get ready."

.

When Cissnei came downstairs again, groomed for action, carrying her stilettos in one hand, she was surprised to find Mink waiting for her at the bar. Elena had finished work for the day and gone home, and the others were out getting something to eat. "I'm going with you," Mink announced. "You need a partner. You can't go armed. They'll search you at the door. My fists are my weapons. It's better if I come too."

Was this some sort of peace offering, or just a Turk being practical? Cissnei would have preferred almost anyone else, but the men couldn't go with her and Hunter hadn't volunteered, and anyway Mink was right: it made sense to take a martial artist. She certainly had no intention of refusing the offer. She was dreading this mission, and any kind of moral support was better than none.

They walked to Corneo's mansion in almost complete silence. Cissnei tried several times to get a conversation going, but Mink was a different woman sober: more taciturn even than Rude, she didn't utter a word unless it was absolutely necessary. _Maybe she'll talk more when she knows me better_ - although, if it was a choice between strong silent sober Mink and drunken bitter garrulous Mink, Cissnei knew which one she'd opt for.

Outside Corneo's gilded gates they stopped briefly to let her sit on the stool by the noodle wagon and change her shoes. Then they walked up to the gates and pulled a silken tassel that rang a bell. A peephole opened, and a man's bloodshot eye appeared. He looked the two of them over, lingering appreciatively on Cissnei before noticing Mink standing behind her. Recognition flickered in his eyes.

An intercom buzzed, and he answered it. Cissnei couldn't make out what the person at the other end was saying. The doorman said, "One of the Turk broads and some hot little number. You two friends?" he asked Mink.

"We're here to see the Don," Mink, poker-faced, replied.

The doorman relayed this information, received some instructions, and unlocked the gate. "Looks like it's your lucky day, ladies."

Cissnei couldn't have said exactly what she expected to happen next. She had been careful not to let herself imagine anything too specific, lest she lose her nerve. It was years since she had undertaken a seduction mission, and dreadful though the prospect was of getting naked with Don Corneo, the fear that she might have lost her touch was more awful still. She had promised Rude she could do this._ It's for Knox and Roz_, she kept reminding herself. _Whatever must be, will be. Just play it by ear._

She was ready for anything, so she wasn't surprised when the doorman showed them into a large parlour, richly furnished in the Wuteng style, all dark wood and gold leaf and crimson satin. He invited them to sit, and she did so, though she would rather have remained standing. Mink sat down beside her. Cissnei was grateful to have her there.

In one corner of the room stood a grandfather clock carved in the form of Leviathan, laquered black and yellow, holding in its jaws a clock face shaped like a radiant sun. The hands of the clock face were made of bronze; the swinging pendulum, a jade sphere, was, Cissnei supposed, meant to be a Time materia. She counted its beats. After sixty swings, the big hand shuddered forward with a loud thud. Thus the minutes ticked by.

Somewhere in another part of the mansion people spoke in raised voices, doors opened and shut, footsteps hurried along creaking floorboards. Nothing, aside from the ticking of the clock, disturbed the silence of the parlour where the two Turks waited. Mink sat very straight in her chair, as quiet, as motionless, as a coiled python. Cissnei wondered what the kerfuffle upstairs was about. Were the Don's lackeys preparing their master's boudoir? Or getting ready to turn two Turks over to the army?

The parlour window looked out onto a concrete wall on which a mural of a mountain scene had been painted. The illusion was successful, as long as you didn't look up to see the jagged shards of broken bottles encrusting the top of the wall. The window was made of bullet proof glass. There would be no escape that way.

By Cissnei's count almost half an hour had passed, when the door opened and the Don himself came in, wearing grey lounge slacks, white wing tip shoes, and a raspberry-coloured quilted smoking jacket. He was older and fatter than she remembered, a little out of breath, his face flushed as if he'd been running. The narrow quiff of hair on his shaven head had been dyed a bright canary yellow. His unbuttoned shirt revealed a triangle of grey chest-hair. He chewed on the large cigar in his mouth the way anxious schoolchildren chewed on their fingers, and his small pouchy eyes darted furtively from side to side.

"Hoo boy," he said. "Word travels fast. No, no," he added as Mink rose to her feet, "Don't get up. Dear ladies, I - holey moley!" He took the cigar from his mouth. "Is that _Cissnei_?"

On cue, she extended her hand and measured a smile for him. She didn't want to look overeager - that would only make him suspicious - but she didn't want to come across as snooty either. "Don Corneo," she said, "It's a pleasure to see you again after so long."

He took her hand and kissed it. "The pleasure's all mine, dear girl," he said, looking at her hungrily, yet regretfully, as if someone had just offered him a delicious cream cake on the very day when his doctor had ordered him to start a diet. "Please, forgive me for keeping you waiting. What a sticky business, eh? I only just now heard the good news."

Mink, who had not sat down, said, "What good news?"

"Why, that the Shinra boy is alive, of course."

Mink's eyes bored into him. Corneo quailed, just a little; she stood half a head taller than he. He licked his lips. "Now, now, let's be reasonable," he said, "Heidegger himself told me the boy was dead. What was I supposed to think?"

"When did you last talk to Heidegger?" asked Mink.

"Only this morning. Look, ladies, I don't want to get dragged into your politics. I've got my hands full with my own business. You think it's easy keeping the peace in this Market? When a Shinra executive calls me up to say he's got a girl for sale, I don't ask to see her papers. I don't ask where he got her from. If you don't make trouble for me, then I don't make trouble for you, right? It's just business. But I don't like being lied to. It puts me in an awkward position."

"What did Heidegger say to you?" asked Mink.

"He asked me if I'd seen any of you lot. I told him the truth: that Director Tseng paid a visit yesterday, like the gent he is, to settle up in person for the damage to my shop. I was dropping a hint, like. You see? And Heidegger laughs - that horse laughs of his is like nails down a blackboard, ladies, I'm telling you - and says 'the Big Bad Woot's done for, and not before time,' and then he _advises_ me, he says, like a _friend_, he says, not to harbour the enemies of Shinra, if I know what's good for me. Now, your Mr Veld and Mr Tseng, they understand I don't take kindly to being threatened, and especially not by a sicko like Heidegger - but what was I supposed to do? He made it sound like you lot were finished."

"Heidegger lied to you," said Mink. "Tseng is alive and free."

"Well, of course I know that _now_. It wasn't five minutes before you beauties rang my doorbell that Kotch came running to me with the news. The word on the street is, it was all Rufus Shinra's doing. Came out of the woodwork like a ghost, I hear, and gave your Mr Tuesti the fright of his life. Hoo boy, I wish I could have seen his face! Where's that boy been all this time? Have you been hiding him? Tseng told me he was in Wutai."

"He's been on an extended business trip," said Mink. "To Wutai, among other places. He's back now."

"Well, that's good, eh?" Corneo included both women in his ingratiating smile. "Good for you. It puts a whole new complexion on things."

Kotch appeared in the doorway. "Just hold on a moment," the Don told him. Turning back to the two Turks, he said, "Now, ladies, try not to get angry. Just keep in mind she came to us like this. We've done what we could for her, but we only received her this morning. All right, Kotch, let them bring her in."

From the way Corneo was talking, Cissnei had begun to expect that she would recognise the woman who came through that door. She had even dared to hope, in one small corner of her heart, that it would be Rosalind. But all three of the woman who entered were unknown to her. Two off-duty Honeybees, their faces scrubbed clean of make-up, supported between them a shuffling figure wrapped in a blanket who seemed barely strong enough to stand, let alone walk. Cissnei would have never have guessed it was woman, had Corneo not referred to her as "she". Her face was a lumpy mass of bruises. Her purple-lidded eyes had swollen to twice their size. From what Cissnei could see under the concealing blanket, hair had been ripped from this woman's head in handfuls, exposing patches of scalp. A bloody bandage wrapped her right hand.

Mink made a strangled sound. Cissnei turned to look at her. Tears were running down her face. It was like seeing a rock weep.

"Oh god," said Mink, "It's Roz."

Rosalind turned her head blindly towards the sound of Mink's voice and stretched out her bandaged hand. The next moment, her foot caught in the blanket; she stumbled, and would have fallen had Mink not run forward to catch her. "Oh, Roz," she said, clutching her friend to her chest, laughing and crying at the same time, "You're alive. You're alive. Thank god."

.

"Did you do this?" Cissnei had no weapons with which to threaten him, but there was murder in her eyes.

Corneo threw up his hands. "Do I look crazy?" he demanded, talking around the cigar clamped between his teeth. "I swear on my sainted mother's grave, I had no idea who she was when I bought her. Heidegger didn't tell me. I thought she was just some girl he'd finished with. And how was I supposed to recognise her? I mean, look at her. It was one of my Honeys who - "

"What about Knox?" said Cissnei. "Where is he?"

"I know nothing about him. If I knew I would tell you, believe me."

Mink scooped Rosalind into her arms and stood up. "Let's go."

Corneo removed the cigar. "Hoo boy, can't you hold on a minute? Listen, ladies, if you think your partner there looks ropey now, you should have seen her when I got her. She was at death's door. I did you a big favour, bringing her back from the brink and all. Now, the thing is, a man in my line of work can't afford to be sentimental, so when he does something like this you have to ask yourself, what's he after? Thanks? Money? Or is he hoping two lovely ladies will put in a good word for him with their boss?"

"Tseng will be informed," said Mink.

Corneo shook his head. "Not the Woot. I'm talking about your golden boy, our future President Rufus Shinra. A little bird told me he's the hand in your glove, if you know what I mean."

"Then I guess he's bound to find out, isn't he?" Mink replied. "Come on, Cissnei. We need to get Roz home."

Cissnei ran ahead to warn the others. She might not know them very well yet, but she knew her friend. "Roz wouldn't want you to see her like this," she said. They too knew Rosalind; they understood. Two-Guns said he would call Tseng; Skeeter went to the kitchen to make an ice-pack. Tys and Hunter were still out, keeping appointments with contacts.

Mink soon arrived, carrying Rosalind in her arms. Together she and Cissnei laid her down on a bed upstairs and set to work determining the extent of her injuries. Rosalind, feverish, teeth chattering, drifted in and out of consciousness. Corneo's people had cleaned her up, but they had not healed her. The lightest touch made her whimper. Welts from a rubber pipe striped her shins. The soles of her feet had also been beaten. Fingermark-shaped bruises, deep and black, marred the pale skin of her inner thighs.

"Look," said Mink.

She had finished unwrapping the bandage round Rosalind's right had. Where the trigger finger should have been, there was only a thick black scab. The finger had been taken off at the knuckle.

Good old reliable Roz; brave, sturdy, patient Roz... Fury at what they had done to her burned through Cissnei's veins; a red mist of rage clouded her eyes. "Those bastards," she choked. "I'll kill them."

"I couldn't find any broken bones, and she's not bleeding internally. We should try Curing her now."

With each casting of the magic, Rosalind healed a little more. The bruises on her face and arms, the weals down her legs and across the small of her back, receded little by little, and her breathing became less painful, less ragged. The splits in her skin closed; the swelling around her eyes went down; her fever abated. She looked like herself again.

Her eyes opened. She recognised them. "Cissnei?" she whispered. Her voice was hoarse.

"Yes, it's me. I'm here."

"I'm glad." Rosalind shut her eyes again. "I didn't tell them anything."

"Roz," said Mink, "I know you're tired, and in a minute you can sleep, but I need to ask about Knox. Do you know where he is?"

Rosalind shook her head. "They took him... somewhere else..."

"In the building?"

"I don't know. I don't know."

She was growing agitated. "It's okay," said Mink. Bending low, she laid the back of her hand against Rosalind's cheek and said, "Listen. We found Elena. She's safe. You're safe. There's nothing to worry about any more."

The tension went out of Rosalind's body. "Don't tell..." Her voice dwindled. She was asleep.

Mink pulled a chair up to the bed and sat down, fists planted on her knees. She looked exhausted; the materia casting had drained her. Cissnei, too, needed to rest. There was no other chair, but the bed was wide, so she curled up beside Rosalind and began to stroke her ruined hair. Cure could not speed its growth; the clumps that had been torn out would have to grow back in their own time. Cissnei used her fingers to comb loose a scab tangled in the yellow strands. Maybe Rosalind's head wouldn't look so sad if her hair were short all over. "Should we cut it?" she wondered aloud. Roz had always taken such pride in her neat, sleek bob.

"If she parts it a different way, the bald bits will be almost covered." Without being asked, Mink got up, went to the dimmer switch by the door, and turned the light down until it was barely on at all and the corners of the room were in shadow. Then she returned to her seat. "Anyway," she added, "her hair will grow back."

"Her finger won't grow back."

"She's been trying for years to outshoot Two-Guns. She's almost as good with her left as with her right now. She could probably retrain herself to use her middle finger...Fuck it," Mink exclaimed, "She's _alive_, that's all that really matters. We can take care of the rest." Mink took a deep breath, not quite a sigh. "I just wish we had some way of knowing that Knox was alive too. Do you think Corneo was telling the truth?"

"Why would he lie?"

"Knowledge is gil. Don't spend it all at once."

"You don't suppose - " Cissnei's voice shook - "That it was his people who did this? On Heidegger's orders?"

"No." Mink sounded very certain. "She was goods to him. He wouldn't damage her. That's army work."

"He only gave her back because he wants to build bridges with Rufus Shinra. He's afraid of him. Afraid of Rufus," Cissnei repeated. "How weird that sounds. But maybe not to you."

"Yes," said Mink. "I mean, no, not really. I don't find Rufus frightening. But I do take him seriously. Whatever else he is, Corneo's no fool."

Cissnei yawned. The dim, drowsy light was making her eyelids heavy. She looked down at Rosalind, fast asleep. The bruises had entirely faded from her face. Smoothing back a few stray hairs, she bent to kiss her poor bald scalp, then lay down, put her arms around her and snuggled up warmly. In her dreams, Roz would know that someone she trusted was holding her, that she was safe.

"You like to touch people, don't you?" said Mink. "You're very - tactile."

"Is that a problem?"

"A problem? No. I envy you."

"I love her," said Cissnei simply. "And I haven't seen her for five years."

"Do you remember -" Mink began.

"When Avalanche attacked the building?"

Mink made a rueful face, acknowledging her error. "Of course you remember. I don't know why I said that."

Rosalind then was Rosalind now: bandaged, concussed, asleep, unaware of what had been taken from her. The last time, Commander Veld had been the one sitting in the chair by her bedside, holding her hand, keeping vigil until she woke up. The last time, Cissnei had been able to channel all her rage at the terrorists - and Aerith, oh yes; how she had hated her! Who should be the target of her hate this time? The soldiers who had tortured Roz? The lieutenant who gave them their orders? The entire Shinra army? The whole of Shinra?

Mink's _I hate everything_ attitude was starting to make too much sense.

Mink said, "I keep thinking about Knox's children."

Cissnei remembered two mischievous little boys, ruddy cheeks, curly dark hair, big grey eyes, the spitting image of their dad. But Knox's kids would be teenagers now. "Do they still live in Mideel?" she asked. "With Barbara?"

"He tried having them for visits, but it never worked. He hasn't seen them for a while. I keep wondering... If they found out their father was dead, how would they react?"

"He's not dead."

"Would it mean anything to them?"

"Why do you care?" asked Cissnei. She was honestly curious.

"Would feel like a real loss to them, after all this time?"

"Why wouldn't it? He_ is_ their father."

"To be a real father, you have to be there for your kids."

"Yeah, well - that's not always possible, is it? You can't ask a civvy to share this life, it's too hard on them. I don't blame Barbara. The best thing Knox ever did for them was letting them go. People like us shouldn't have children."

"I have a child."

Mink said it so softly, Cissnei couldn't be sure she hadn't dreamed it. "What?"

"I have a child. A boy. Young man, really. He'd be fifteen. I mean, he _is_ fifteen."

According to Reno, Mink had a way with kids. He'd never said anything about her being a mother. Which meant he didn't know. Did Tseng know?

"Earlier today," said Mink, "When you followed me into the bar, I mistook you for a boy. I was thinking about Zack when you sat down beside me. Actually, about Zack's parents. You sat down and I thought, oh fuck, here's another one, some other mother's son still wet behind the ears. And then it hit me. You could have been my boy. How would I know? I don't know what he looks like. I know nothing about him. I could walk right by him and never know it."

"Did you give him up for adoption?"

"I walked out on him and his father. I was eighteen. He was five months old. He didn't even have any teeth yet; I don't think he could have missed me for long. The man I left with - it's a long story, but he died. After that, I drifted."

"Icebergs drift," said Cissnei.

"Is that how I seem to you?"

"Reno said you were the ice queen. Mind you, that was five years ago. I've seen you cry, so I guess you've done some melting."

Mink gave her a little look of surprise. Then she laughed, which was a surprise in itself. "Yeah, I guess you could put it that way. You know, Cissnei - while we were at Corneo's place, waiting in that godawful parlour, I had a - a kind of epiphany."

_I'll bet that's never happened there before_. Aloud, she said, "You want to tell me about it?"

"Well, like I said, I've been thinking a lot about Knox's kids. And about my own son. I've done a lot of stuff in my life I wouldn't want that kid to know about. He's all I've got to set on the credit side of the balance sheet, this one life I brought into the world. And I was thinking about him and what he would say if he knew what his mum did for a living, and _hoping_ he would be appalled and disgusted - and then I thought, but somebody has to do it, for his sake. It seems so obvious now I'm saying it, but I never understood before."

"We get our hands dirty so other people won't have to," Cissnei recited.

"Whenever the Chief used to trot that one out, I always thought, tch, stupid corporate mantra. How naive does he think I am? I still don't know how I feel about Shinra. It is true that the whole world has been at peace for ten years now. That's never happened before. Maybe we have the company to thank. Maybe Shinra _is_ the only thing standing between humanity and chaos. Personally, I think it's a bad idea to start believing your own propaganda. But if Fuhito wins this round, it won't just be Shinra that falls. _Everything_ will be destroyed. All the real people living their ordinary normal lives, trusting Shinra to protect them - they'll all die. All the mothers' sons will die. My son will die, and I'll never get the chance to meet him and find out what kind of man he's become. And I want to know him. That's what I realised, back at Corneo's place. More than anything in the world, I want to know my son."

"You don't hate everything," said Cissnei. "Do you?"

"Only myself."

_Tell me about it, _thought Cissnei. Out loud she said, "Occupational hazard."

"When this is over," said Mink, "I'm going to go find him. I wouldn't try to be his mum. I'd make a crap mother. Anyway, he has a mum. His father married again quite fast. I'm sure she's done a much better job than I ever could. I wouldn't even try to tell him who I am. I just want to see him. I need to know - "

"That he's okay?"

"That he's glad he was born. I'd like to know I got _something_ right."

* * *

_Thanks for reading!_


	70. All Breakages Must Be Paid For

**CHAPTER 70: ALL BREAKAGES MUST BE PAID FOR**

* * *

The last twenty-four hours had felt to Reno like the longest of his frikkin' _life._

Ever since waking from his drugged nap, Tseng had been acting pretty subdued. Probably he thought he'd passed out again. Reno certainly had no intention of confessing - not unless Tseng confronted him with some solid evidence. Least said, soonest mended, as they say.

The moment Rude returned from seeing Cissnei, Tseng sent Reno out to fetch some weapons from one of their nearby caches. He found an empty crate, packed it with four handguns, two rods, some stun grenades, a couple of army knives, and a Restore, a Heal, an Ice, and Barrier, and carried it back to the bunker, where Tseng informed him that while he was out Hunter had called to report Cissnei's safe arrival at the rendezvous in Wall Market. Mink had turned up too, so that was one less to worry about.

"Go down if you want," Tseng added.

"Nah," Reno shrugged. "I'm all right."

Inside, he was fuming. Why did they all have to keep acting like they knew what he wanted? He didn't even know himself. And anyway, shouldn't the Boss be the one to join the others in Wall Market? Here in the bunker there was nothing to do but guard the V.P., and you didn't need three top-ranking Turks for that. But Tseng showed no sign of being inclined to leave.

Time passed in long stretches of silence, punctuated by brief conversations. Rufus worked away at his computer, tap tap tappity tap. He turned down Reno's offers of help, his excuse being that working with someone else made it hard for him to concentrate. He _said_ it had taken him hours of cyber-detection to get those passwords; he _said _the work was too delicate for amateurs. "Who are you calling amateurs?" Reno bristled, but Tseng knocked that on the head at once with a curt, "Let him get on with it. He knows what he's doing," and Reno had to go into the kitchen and shut the door and smoke a cigarette in order to calm down.

Several hours later, the V.P. said, "I think you should see this." Reno and Rude came at once to peer over his shoulder at the document on the screen: a deed of receipt, dug out from Heidegger's personal files and dated that very day, for the external transfer of a 'personnel unit' from Shinra's Public Safety Maintenance Department to the Honeybee Inn. According to the receipt, Corneo had paid 250,000 gil for the 'unit'. The money had gone straight into one of Heidegger's numbered bank accounts.

"What kind of whore is worth a quarter of a million?" Reno marvelled.

Just as he finished speaking, the phone on the coffee table began to ring. Tseng, who had remained in the sitting area, picked it up. Two-Guns was on the line. He had some good news, and some bad news.

At first the relief of discovering that Roz was alive outweighed any other emotion, but gradually, as the full extent of what had been done to her sank in, their anger grew. "A quarter of a fucking million," said Reno. "That finger they took's worth twice that alone."

"Corneo knew what he was buying," By the tone of Tseng's voice and the look in his eye, Reno understood that from this moment on, Don Corneo's days were numbered.

Rufus had remained in his seat at the computer, quietly listening to everything that passed between them. Now he said, "Heidegger could have had her killed. Why do you suppose he chose not to? Because he's sloppy and greedy? Quite possibly. But isn't it also possible that he's beginning to grow tired of playing Scarlet's stooge?"

"What the fuck is he on about?" said Reno to Rude. Rude scowled at him.

"We owe the Don a debt of gratitude," said Rufus. "If he hadn't agreed to buy her, I doubt she would still be alive. A quarter of a million is a drop in the ocean compared to what Rosalind is worth to me. As far as I'm concerned, he's earned my goodwill, and as long as he continues to earn it, he can keep it. Of course, I'll make sure he's repaid. You might want to see that he gets that message. Now - " he pushed back his chair and stood up - "If you'll excuse me, I really need some sleep. My eyeballs are burning. Wake me in four hours. We still need to find Knox."

Once his bedroom door was shut, Reno said, to no one in particular, "Well, that's us fucking told, isn't it?"

Rude acted as if he had not heard. Reno turned to Tseng, but Tseng had put his hand over his eyes, the gesture eloquent of a weariness that no amount of sleep could dispel. This eye-shading thing, this concealing of his emotions, had over the last months become a habit with Tseng, and Reno sometimes wondered if he even knew he was doing it. For there had been a time when the hand was not necessary; when his eyes gave nothing away.

Hope had returned to the bunker, bringing fresh energy with it. Reno burned with the urge to do something, anything. But there was nothing to do. Rufus slept. Tseng ran miles on the treadmill. Rude played silent games of chess against himself. Reno smoked one cigarette after another. How had the V.P. endured _four years_ of this without losing his mind? Reno was about ready to climb the walls, and it hadn't even been a full day yet.

Knox and Aviva preyed on his mind. He told himself he had to stop fearing the worst. He didn't want to think too hard about what had happened to Rosalind either. Fear was the great paralyser, but rage made you blind. As for Cissnei, better not even start: his mind went round and round that subject like a hamster on a treadmill. He needed to think about something else, but the room offered few distractions. He wasn't a reader. He didn't like chess. Tseng was monopolising the machine. And so, for lack of any else to take his mind off his worries, he stretched out on the sofa and began to contemplate his Enemy Skill materia. Holding it up to the light, he closed first his left eye, then his right, puzzled by how something stuffed with memory energy could remain completely transparent, like a bubble of glass, and wondering about the forces that had caused it to exist in the first place.

Enemy Skill really was a weird materia, when you got to thinking about it. Most naturally occurring materia could be synthesized in Shinra's labs, but not Enemy Skill; that was what made it so rare. And even if you were lucky enough to stumble across one in the wild, it was good for nothing until you had exposed it to an attack it could absorb. Every other materia came ready-charged with all the powers it was ever going to have: elemental powers of earth and fire and electricity; organic powers of birth and growth and decay. The more you used any single sphere of materia, the stronger it became, and the stronger it became, the faster it drained your mental reserves. Materia casting was exhausting and sometimes painful, but it could also become addictive, if you had a taste for that kind of thing.

What materia did not normally do was give you _feelings. _

The Enemy Skill in his hand emitted fear the way a light-bulb gave off heat. If he held it too long or too tightly, the vibes began to seep through his skin into his nerve endings, sparking the fight-or-flight response that had caught him off guard in the labs. Now, having given the matter some thought, he speculated that the fear-power must be part of the energy that had been absorbed when the crystal was exposed to the enemy attacks it contained. Take, for example, that pinky-red lobster-spider thing: it must have been afraid for its life when it unleashed its trine attack, and the Enemy Skill had captured the energy of that emotion. In that sense, it worked a bit like a camera, which captured the energy of light. Or something like that; Reno was a bit hazy on the finer scientific details.

If the _Study of Planet Life_, Avalanche's gospel, was to be believed - and Reno wasn't saying he did believe it - nature formed materia out of crystallised memories. The question was, though: _whose_ memories? Bugenhagen said that the energy in the mako was spirit energy, which every living thing released when it 'returned to the planet', that Cosmo Canyon euphemism for death. But the process wasn't perfect. Sometimes, instead of breaking down into pure energy, shards of memory hardened into crystals instead. That seemed to be the theory, anyway. Reno didn't know if anyone had ever managed to prove it.

Nevertheless, suppose for the sake of argument that Bugenhagen's theory was right. That would mean materia was nothing more than undigested bits of recycled souls, and hunting for naturally occurring materia was the equivalent of digging around in a graveyard and coming up with a single finger-bone or molar when all the rest of the person's body had crumbled to dust -

"You've been studying that thing for the last half hour." Tseng sat down on the sofa next to Rude, a towel slung round his neck. His chin dripped sweat. Reno, lost in thought, hadn't heard the treadmill switching off. Tseng wiped his face with one end of the towel. "Making progress?"

"Getting there. You ever tried using one of these, Boss?"

"When I was rookie. I didn't have the knack."

Reno turned to Rude. "What about you?"

"A couple of times. Didn't like it. Screws with my head."

Reno grinned. "Here, catch." He lobbed the Enemy Skill in his partner's direction. Rude caught it easily, and without missing a beat flipped it back to Reno's waiting hands.

"I wish you wouldn't do that," said Tseng.

"It's not nitroglycerine," said Rude.

"When Reno's handling it, it's hard to tell the difference."

"Oh, _burn_," said Reno with heavy sarcasm.

Rude got to his feet and went into the kitchen for something to drink. Reno said, "This materia - it just makes no fucking sense. If ordinary materia is crystallised memories, then when the hell is this thing? Fossilised amnesia? Enemy Skill's like an uncharged battery. It's empty when we get it. It's got no powers except what we put into it. It's an abnormality."

"Beer?" said Rude from the kitchen.

"Yeah, thanks."

"I'll have one too," said Tseng, "Do you mean anomaly, Reno?"

"Anomaly, yeah, that's the word. Defined as: 'Bugenhagen's theory is a load of bollocks'."

"Which one?"

"It's all one big theory, innit? Planet life. Materia genesis. That stuff about the mako being the Lifestream. You don't really believe that, do you, Boss?"

A faint smile touched the corners of Tseng's mouth. Before he could speak, Rude returned with three brown bottles of cold lager. The Sephiroth brand had been retired years ago; the label read _Junon Cannon _now. Reno felt that was symbolic of a lot of things. Rude handed one bottle to Tseng, one to Reno, and sat back down behind his chess board. "So are we celebrating?" asked Reno, "Or drowning our sorrows?"

"Both," said Tseng. He tipped back his head and drank deeply. Another anomaly. Reno couldn't remember ever seeing Tseng chug beer straight from the bottle before. He could have sworn Tseng didn't even like beer.

Putting down the bottle, Tseng wiped his mouth and said, "I don't know if I believe it or not. Sometimes I wish I could believe it. But in my more rational moments I'm sure that the Lifestream is nothing more than a myth, elaborated by humanity to explain the cycle of life and death and our reliance on nature."

"Does the V.P. believe in it? I mean, really_?_"

Tseng hesitated. "Rufus - likes playing with ideas. I'm never quite sure how seriously he takes any of them."

"Makes no difference," said Rude.

Reno looked over at him. "How d'you reckon that? Seems to me it makes all the difference."

"It doesn't matter what name you give it. Mako. Lifestream. Doesn't matter_ what_ it is. When it's gone, we're finished. The Boss and I, we _felt_ it. How many times do I have to tell you?"

"You're not pulling my leg," Reno realised.

"Would I make this stuff up?"

"But... If that's true, the Old Man must know."

Tseng said, "The sleep of reason produces monsters." He leaned his head back against the sofa, as if he was already tired of this conversation.

"And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"He knows," Rude answered. "He doesn't care. He'll be dead before the shit hits the fan. He's leaving all that for Rufus to clean up. Rotten business. Sick planet. Nice legacy."

Reno had been aware for a while now that the Vice-President was rising in Rude's estimation, but he had never before heard his partner be so openly critical of the Old Man. This wasn't like their usual joking around. There was real contempt, bordering on anger, in Rude's tone. Rude must have read the look of confusion on Reno's face, for he added, "You're not the only one who found it hard, what happened to Zack."

"I know that, man."

"Our job," said Tseng, "Has always been to protect the truth from those who would turn it against us. We've silenced men before for merely hinting at what we're saying now. If Rufus's calculations are correct, by the time he's my age this planet will be more dead than alive. Yet instead of addressing the problem, the Old Man plays with his toy soldiers and daydreams about the promised land. His obsessions have blinded him to the fact that we are on the brink of a crisis too big to be covered up. People look to Shinra for leadership. If we fail to provide it, others will find a way to fill the vacuum. We can't let that happen."

"If Rufus wins," said Rude, "We all win. If he loses..."

Nobody needed to have it spelt out for them. Rude let his voice tail away, and silence fell. Reno wondered what the other two were thinking. Then Tseng's eyes widened and he sat up. "L for Loser," he said.

Reno frowned. "Huh?"

"An escape route. We don't have one. It's been staring me in the face all this time." He looked from Rude to Reno. "Even jumpings have enough sense to build several exits to their burrows. All we have is that one door. If soldiers came through there right now, we'd be trapped. We have to build another way out. The sooner the better."

"Now?" said Rude.

"Of course," said Tseng.

_Yes! Action stations! About fucking time! _Reno drained his beer, set the Enemy Skill on the table and rolled to his feet. "I'll fetch the toolbox," he said.

* * *

Aviva didn't realize she had fallen asleep until she awoke, head pillowed on a nerveless arm. Close by, the Chief was snoring. She looked over at him. The support materia, cupped loosely in his hand, continued to radiate a dim but steady glow, and she could just about make out the lines of his face. Slumped uncomfortably against the rock wall, he slept with his mouth open, hands upturned in his lap. He looked like somebody's grandad like that, venerable, gentle, old.

She wondered if Dr Rui's sister had agreed to go to Midgar with him.

Girl, do you ever dream about the bright lights of the big city? Do you want to be someone special? Help make history? If so, just say the word. You have a talent I think we can use.

"Pearl," the woman in the blue suit had said - because that was Aviva's name in those days - "Pearl, think carefully before you give me your answer. This is a once-in-a-lifetime offer. You won't get a second chance."

"Can I say no?" asked Pearl. She'd never met a Turk before, but she'd heard about them. Everybody knew what Turks did.

The woman smiled. "Have you got any idea how difficult it is to get into my department? We have people banging on the door begging us to let them in. Most of them don't have what it takes. Our requirements are very specific. I think you do have what it takes. You'd be crazy to turn this chance down.

"Oh, and Pearl," she added, "There's something else you ought to know before you decide. Gavaskar's people know it was you who killed him."

Pearl's body began to shake uncontrollably. Her teeth were chattering like a wind-up toy. _I didn't want to do it! They made me!_ But this woman in the blue suit would not believe her. She was shrewd. One look in Pearl's face would be enough for her to know the truth.

"They are at your place right now," said the suit-lady. "I only just beat them to you. Your... what _do_ you call Mrs Bertram? Your handler? Your ringmaster? Your pimp - "

"I'm not a prossie," Pearl cried indignantly.

"Are you not?"

"No! I work in the show. I am a professional artiste. They're not going to hurt her, are they?"

"Don't worry about her. Just answer my question."

"All right. I do - you know - sometimes, but not for money. It's just - sometimes she asks me to be, you know, _sweet_ to her friends. It's no big deal. I don't mind. She's done a lot for me. Are you sure they're not going to hurt her?"

"Quite sure. I have a colleague taking care of that. Pearl, let me ask you something. Do you know how much your Mrs Bertram got up front for the job you did on Gavaskar? No? I'll tell you: one hundred thousand gil."

An enormous sum. Pearl tried to picture so much money, arranged in tidy stacks.

"What was your cut?"

"I don't understand," said Pearl in a small voice. Nobody had talked to her about money. Didn't this woman get it? She hadn't done it for money, but now these questions were making her feel dirty and guilty all over again.

"Oh, I think you do," said the woman. "Skills like yours don't come cheap. But you're fifteen years old. Getting close to your sell-by date. Although they managed to stunt your growth, I see. Hard physical work and a low protein diet. That'll do it. How old were you when Mrs Bertram bought you from the workhouse?"

"I - I'm not sure. Seven. Eight."

"Did they ever give you anything? Shots? Hormones?"

"I don't know. I get shots sometimes -"

"Hmm. Show me your teeth. Healthy. Nice straight limbs. You're very flexible, aren't you? How did they train you? To kill him, I mean."

Melons. Pigs's heads. The corpse of a homeless man from the pauper hospital. Mrs B paid two hundred gil for it. Pearl had thought for sure she would throw up if they made her touch a dead man's face, but then she surprised herself. It was easy.

He was asleep when she pushed the long copper needle into his ear. She had to put all her weight behind it. The mattress buckled under her knees. She knew a moment of terror when his eyelids flickered, but then he breathed out and didn't breathe in again. She held her own breath, and counted until she was sure. There wasn't even any blood. He'd been so fleshy, so heavy, so hot, so loud, like a grunting pig - and little Pearl had put him out as easily as turning off a light.

The most vivid memory Aviva retained of that night was not the actual killing, which was the work of a few moments, but the fierce elation that had swept though Pearl afterwards. _No matter what happens next, he'll never be able to do that again, not to me or to anyone else._ The escape that followed was a blur: out the window, down the drainpipe and across the moonlit lawn, effortlessly avoiding the guard dogs and the night watchman. She was indestructible. Nothing could touch her now.

The woman in the suit found her two days later, hiding, as she had been told to, in the cellar of Mrs B's house. She was cold and hungry and the house felt empty: the silence was beginning to scare her. When she heard the rapping on the cellar door, she froze in terror. The door creaked open, admitting a slab of light. "Hello," said the woman in the blue suit. "You must be Pearl. I'm Natalya. I'm here to talk to you about a job opportunity. Let's go for a little drive, shall we?"

She drove Pearl all the way to a coffee shop in the next town, bought her a hamburger and strawberry milkshake and watched her wolf them down.

"He was a bad man, that Gavaskar." In their whole conversation, this was the only time Natalya spoke to Pearl as if she were a child. "He was on our list. You don't know it, but you did us a favour. You made a pretty good job of it, too - for an amateur. If someone hadn't snitched you'd have got away with it. We've sorted that out for you, by the way. Yes, I think my superior is going to like you, Pearl. Mind you, there's no guarantees. The Commander is very particular about who he hires, and you'll have to pass probation. But whatever happens, if you agree to come with me today you will belong to Shinra from now on, and in Shinra we look after our own. So what do you say, Pearl?"

"My name's not really Pearl. That's just what they called me."

Natalya smiled. She wasn't young, but Pearl thought she was very beautiful in a motherly kind of way, with stern wise eyes and masses of warm brown hair.

"You can call yourself whatever you like," said the Turk recruiter.

A new name for a new life. Such a thing was not to be chosen lightly. Pearl spent a whole week trying on different names, but none of them felt right, and in the end she invented one for herself, a springy, resilient name, a name that could flip back and forth and always land the right way up; a freshly-minted name that was hers and hers alone. Tucked away right in the middle of it, she put a memory of the name her mother had called her by: Ivy.

.

The first thing the Chief did when he woke up was to hand Aviva his canteen of water and order her to drink. Desperately thirsty, she longed to gulp great greedy draughts, but she controlled herself and only took a sip, swilling the water around her dry mouth to prolong the pleasure. It didn't escape her notice that he put the canteen away again without drinking any himself. _I'm going to have to keep an eye on him_, she thought.

"What time do you suppose it is, sir? Do you think it's morning yet?"

"Yes," the Chief grunted, hauling himself to his feet. "Here, hold this." He gave her the glowing materia. She held it up like a lamp.

"It must be at least twelve hours since we fell," she said. "I wonder what's keeping Shears. Do you think maybe he got lost in the caves?"

"He'll come. Be patient."

_But I'm so hungry! _ The Chief was probably hungry too. Was he complaining? People could survive for a week without food if they had water. But the Chief was old; he might not last that long.

He began to go through a sequence of gentle stretching exercises, the kind designed to loosen stiff muscles. Aviva saw that he avoided putting weight on his right foot, and held his left arm crooked at an awkward angle, its elbow pressing against his sore ribs.

"You're not healed, sir."

Was it her fault? Had she cast the spell wrong? She should have put more energy into it.

"I'm as healed as I'll ever be," he replied. "Old bones don't mend like young ones do. Or we'd all be living forever. Eh? And the planet would grind to a halt."

_Maybe - but this cave is not going to be our tomb, _Aviva resolved. _There's no way I am letting him die here. _

It was all very well saying wait for Shears, but what if he never came back? What if the Ravens had got him? The longer they waited, the weaker the Chief would get. She would give it one more hour, and then she was going to explore that cleft in the rock by herself. She was small enough and bendy enough to squeeze through almost anywhere. And if that didn't work, then - then - she would think of something else.

The Chief finished his exercises and sat down, leaning against the rock and holding his injured leg stiffly in front of him, breathing as if he was in pain.

"Should I Cure you again?" she asked.

"No. It won't help. Aviva - "

"Yes, sir?"

"I heard - " He winced and pressed a hand to his side.

"Sir, are you okay?"

"Yes, yes, don't fuss. I heard you and Reno paid a visit to my friend Bugenhagen a while back. Hojo sent you to collect his foster child."

"Yes, sir. Nanaki." Aviva tried not to think about him.

"Is he still alive?"

"I don't know, sir."

"When you get back to Midgar, I want you to do something for me."

"Set him free, sir?"

The Chief glanced up at her. He seemed a little surprised at how easily she followed his thoughts. "I owe Bugenhagen some favours. Get the animal out if you can. If that's not possible... Do what's kindest. If he's dead, let Bugenhagen know. The not-knowing is the worst thing. I'd like to set his mind at rest."

Aviva thought of all the times she and her colleagues had flown back and forth to Cosmo Canyon to question the old man about Avalanche. He had welcomed them politely every time. He had given them some useful information. How afraid he must have been. _How he must hate us_, she thought.

"Yes," said the Chief, "The not-knowing, that's what drives you mad. Sometimes it gets so bad you feel it would be better to know for sure that they were dead. Then, at least, you wouldn't have to feel afraid for them any more."

"That's why you told Dr Rui her sister was dead, even though you don't know for sure."

"Yes. Cold comfort. But it was all I had."

She longed to ask him if he regretted taking the little girl, but the old taboo was too strong for her. _There are things we don't talk about_. Don't ask, if you already know the answer. Every Turk knew the answer: it was another of the things that united them. They all understood why Reno drank, why Roz was pathologically tidy, and why Mink seethed with repressed rage; they all knew the reason why black moods dogged Cavour's heels, why Tseng's masterful calm occasionally shattered in explosion of temper, and why Mozo had been unable to resist gambling, first with his money and then with his life. It was the same reason they had tried so hard to save Zack, despite knowing all along that he was beyond saving. It was why they were trying to save Elfe now.

The Chief 's thoughts seemed to have taken him far away. "Sir?" she said.

"What, Aviva?"

"Do you remember, when you recruited me, telling me I had to prepare myself to be hated? We're like undertakers, you said, or sewage workers. Everybody knows that what we do is necessary, but nobody likes to see it; they want it all underground, behind closed doors, out of sight. You said the Turks was no place for wannabe heroes. Nobody was going to thank me for what I did. That's why we have to believe in ourselves, and look out for each other."

"And have you found that advice useful?" He sounded as if he really wanted to know.

"I've always accepted that some people are going to people hate us. It's the nature of the job. Sometimes we are misunderstood. But sometimes I think we deserve it. We've made mistakes, and people have suffered. Not everything we've been ordered to do has been strictly necessary." Nanaki was still in her mind. "I think there's a lot of things we could have done differently. We can't let ourselves forget that or - or - just brush it under the carpet. But - I'm _not_ sorry I became a Turk," she declared fiercely. "I'll never be sorry about that. When you hired me, you didn't just save my life. You _gave_ me a life, the only life I could ever want or imagine myself being. Joining the Turks was the best thing that ever happened to me. I just - I just wanted you to know that, sir."

Uncomfortable under his scrutiny, she faltered: he was looking at her as if she'd suddenly grown two heads. "Aviva," he said, "Are you trying to tell me I shouldn't be so hard on myself?"

Put like that, it did sound terribly presumptuous. Tongue-tied once more, she looked down at her knotted fingers.

"My dear girl," he said. "You mean well. But you have no idea. You can't even begin to understand."

She longed to tell him he was wrong: she understood very well the kind of thinking that balanced one life against another, made the punishment fit the crime. Turks were a superstitious lot. What goes around, comes around. All breakages must be paid for.

"I'm not looking for forgiveness," said the Chief. "Everything I did, I did with my eyes open. That includes taking Shelke Rui. And you. And Cissnei. And Tseng. The needs of the company were paramount. But I thought I could keep my own child out of it."

"I went into this with my eyes open too," Aviva protested. "You made sure that I knew exactly what I was getting into."

"With you I could allow myself to be honest. Felicia... She never knew what my work entailed. I let her believe I was an accountant in the Motor Vehicles department. It was the dullest damn job I could think of. I didn't want her asking questions. One day she found my gun. I told her everyone in Midgar had a gun, for shooting monsters. When she wanted to know why she couldn't come to Midgar with me, I gave her the same excuse: too many monsters. I had a special ID made that I only used when I went to see them. She didn't - "He broke off, and gave a laugh that wasn't a laugh at all. "It's quite possible that my daughter still does not know my real name."

Aviva's gut response was to think, _that's awful._

Her second, a moment later, was to realise, with a little shock, that she did not know her parents' real names either. She could not remember ever hearing either of her parents calling the other one by name. Of Dad she retained only the fuzziest memories. Her memories of Mum were more sharply-focused, like snapshots in an album, but seemed to have no particular significance. In one, her mother stood at the stove with an apron tied round her waist; in another, her mother wore a flowery nightgown and bent over to tuck her back into bed after a bad dream. In the final memory, she and her mother walked together to the workhouse, her mother holding her hand too tightly, carrying a little suitcase in the other. Aviva could hear her own childish voice complaining, _stop squeezing my fingers, Mummie._

"She didn't ask to have a Turk as a father," said the Chief. "She was innocent, and I was determined to protect that innocence by every means at my disposal. So I kept her in the dark. I closed every loophole. But of course, I failed to see the biggest loophole of all. The company's not something you put on and off like a coat. Every time I went to see them, Shinra came with me. When I thought I was going to lose her, I didn't hesitate to put my trust in a man whom I knew to be absolutely evil, because he was - I believed - my colleague. I thought nothing could be worse than letting my child die. But I was wrong. Thisis worse. For her and for me. So you see, Aviva - you were right when you told Shalua that I understand her pain, because, to some extent, it is my own. The difference is, Shalua didn't bring it on herself."

He wasn't referring to the accidental bombing of Kalm; she understood that. All the same, he seemed to keep forgetting that his innocent child Felicia was a different person now - and Elfe's hands were not exactly clean, either. His determination to blame himself for all of Elfe's suffering niggled at her in a way she couldn't define, and was almost ashamed to be feeling.

For lack of anything better to say, she reminded him, "At least you know for sure that El - that Felicia is alive, sir."

"If you can call that living." He paused, took a breath. Said, "I've seen what she's become."

"You've _seen_ her?" exclaimed Aviva. "When?"

"A long time ago. At least three years. She'll have deteriorated since then."

"Was it soon after you left us?"

"Yes. Well, not very soon. Six months, or thereabouts."

He seemed disinclined to continue. Burning with curiosity - _if he'd found her, why did he let her go? -_ Aviva managed to hold her tongue and wait, willing him to tell the rest.

At last he said, "We, Shears and I, we had no idea where to start searching. For months we wandered aimlessly. Sometimes we'd get up in the morning and spin a coin to decide which road to take next. That day, we were in a town way out on the eastern edge of the Grasslands. Shears came late to breakfast. I left him eating and went to the bank to draw some money. When I came out, she was standing there, in the street, waiting for me. She was as close to me as you are now.

"My first instinct was to grab hold of her. Something stopped me. She was all skin and bone, like a bird. I could see her heart beating in her throat. I thought that if I tried to touch her, she'd fly away or - break. The way she looked at me was like a bird too. She turned her head, like this, eyeing me sideways."

"What did you say, sir?"

"I don't remember if I said anything. I think I was too shocked to speak. She spoke to me. Her voice was raspy. She said, 'Be careful. Bad men are following me. They killed your daughter. They killed my father. Go home.'

"I think I said _No. _And then she said, 'The end of the world is coming. Your children will be the sacrifice.' "

Goosepimples ran up Aviva's arms. She crossed them, hugging herself.

"Her skin looked like waxed paper," said the Chief. "I could count her veins. My beautiful little girl. She was wearing gloves but they couldn't hide the fact that one of her hands was almost twice the size of the other. It was obvious she was in terrible pain. I said to her, 'You're ill. Let me take you to a doctor.'

"She said, 'Fuhito will fix everything. He understands.'

"She had no idea who I was. No recognition in her eyes. I thought she might react to Shears' name, so I said, 'Elfe, Shears is here. He wants to see you.'"

The Chief took a deep breath. "I don't know how to describe to you what happened next. Her face… changed. It became some other thing. It was as if her face was the surface of a pool of water, and the thing that was living at the bottom of the pool came swimming up to the surface to look at me through her eyes. You know how water distorts shapes. The sight of it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I forgot it was my own child in front of me. I couldn't see her any more. All I could see was that misshapen _thing_. It disgusted me: I wanted to smash its face in. I reached for my gun. Not deliberately; by instinct. Self-defense. And it said – it said, _Daddy, don't._"

Aviva reached over and gripped his hand - his real hand, large, warm, rough-skinned - in her own. She held it tight.

After a while, she said, "And then?"

"It – she – left."

"Vanished?"

"Ran. Reno couldn't have moved that fast. I didn't even see which way she went."

"It was the summons, wasn't it?" said Aviva. "It was the summons talking. It's like a parasite inside her."

"A symbiote. That's what Bugenhagen thinks. Neither can survive without the other now. They're growing weaker together." His hand tightened round Aviva's. "Every day that this drags on, I go over that moment again and again in my mind. Some part of her must have known who I was. Why did she come to me? What did she want from me? I lie awake at night, trying to make sense of it. What if she came to me because she couldn't stand living like that any longer? What if she wanted me to set her free? Did I disappoint her? Should I have given her what she wanted? Is that what a good father would have done?"

"No!" Aviva exclaimed, "You have to stay focused, sir. You can't keep dwelling on the past. What's done is done. Elfe - I mean, Felicia is relying on you to move forward. The only thing that matters now is what we do next. Avalanche must have a base somewhere around here, and we've located all the support materia. It won't take long to find her if we work together. We're all behind you on this, sir."

"Yes. You told me. You're a good girl, Veev." He squeezed her hand, then withdrew his own, and she sensed that he was disappointed in her somehow. "But I can't allow it."

"Why? We don't care what the Old Man says. We're still your Turks."

"If you are still my Turks, then you should know that your loyalty is to Shinra. I didn't recruit you to be my private army - though the President must think I did, now. I raised you to serve the company. That's where your duty lies. I'm not the head of your department any more. This sentimental nonsense has got to stop."

"But - "

"My daughter is my burden. Not yours. It was my mistake that ruined her life. I won't let it destroy you as well."

"But sir, when you hired me you told me that being a Turk means being willing to put your life on the line every day. Don't you remember? And ever since I joined the Turks our number one mission has been to shut down Avalanche and bring Fuhito to justice. Working together with you and Shears isn't being disloyal to Shinra."

"I don't think the President would agree with you on that point."

"Well, even Presidents can be wrong sometimes. The Boss says that the President made a mistake calling you a traitor, and he says the President knows it was a mistake, too. And he says that sometimes our job means we have to protect the President from his own mistakes. He thinks the President would really like to find an excuse to forgive you. He thinks the President misses you, sir."

"Tseng seems to be doing a lot of thinking for himself these days," said the Chief.

"And we all agree with him."

"Yes, I'm sure you do. Even so, it's a dangerous game he's playing with your lives. I don't want any of you to die for my sake. All I need from you are the other two support materia. Shears and I will handle the rest." Veld paused, as if a thought had struck him. "Veev," he said, "When did you last call in a report? Tseng must be wondering what's happened. He'll be sending back-up soon if he doesn't hear from you."

"No, he doesn't know where I am - " Aviva clapped both hands over her big mouth, but too late: the truth was out.

The Chief sat up straight. "What?"

"I mean - um, it's - Remember I told you I don't have a phone, sir? I couldn't call him."

"You said you weren't able to let him know you'd made contact with me. You never told me he didn't know where you were. What's going on? Aviva - look me in the eye. Did you or did you not come to Corel on Tseng's orders?"

Aviva shrank under that penetrating gaze. "I did not, sir."

"He didn't send you after me?"

"No, sir."

"Then what the _hell_ are you doing here?"

Inside her Turk shoes her toes curled for shame. "I, um - I ran away, sir."

"Ran away?" He sounded as if he could not believe what he was hearing.

Aviva squirmed, caught in a trap of her own making. He was going to ask her why she had done it, and she knew she would have to tell him. She could not lie to the Chief. Those old eyes saw through everything.

"That doesn't sound like you," he said. "The Aviva I remember wouldn't run away. Have you deserted from Shinra? No, that makes no sense. You came here to work. You took Shalua into custody. If it wasn't on Tseng's orders, then whose?"

"It's not like that, sir. I ran into Dr Rui by accident. She was sick, so I helped her. I haven't really run away, sir. I always meant to go back. I was afraid the Boss might not give me leave so I - I left without telling him. I just had to get away for a while, sir."

"Away from what? Something - or someone?"

"Someone." _Please let that be enough_. _Please let him understand. And please, please, please let him not ask who._

"Ah," said the Chief slowly. "A boy?"

She couldn't let that stand. "A man," she corrected him.

"Of course. Forgive me. You are not the sort of young woman who would throw up everything over a mere boy. This man, then – is he giving you trouble?"

"Oh no, sir. Never. He's always been really good to me. That's not it at all."

"Ah, I see. You like him."

Aviva stared down at her toes. If only the cave would chose this moment to fall in and bury her! She didn't dare say a word. She had never spoken about this with anyone. The closest she'd come was with Charlie, but when he'd offered her the chance, she'd lost her nerve and run away. Now she had nowhere to run. She was petrified - but also, strangely, exhilarated. Her heart felt ready to burst. It would be such a relief to tell _someone_.

The Chief took the words out of her mouth. "You love him. "

He made it sound so simple. "Yes," she said.

She felt the word floating away from her, taking something with it that she could never have back.

"Well," said the Chief. "Love is good."

"He doesn't love me, though. And he never will."

"Then he's a fool. You shouldn't fall in love with fools, child, it never ends well."

"He's not a fool, don't say that. He doesn't even know how I feel about him. I've never told him."

"Doesn't make him any less of a fool. A man ought to be able to tell when a woman loves him."

"Oh, no! I don't want him to know. I'd _die_ if he knew. He'd try to be _nice_ about it, or he'd crack some joke to try to make everything okay, and that would be _worse_."

"So you don't want to risk it. Fair enough. But then, how can you be so sure he doesn't feel the same way about you?"

"I just do. I know exactly how he feels. He'll never be interested in me, because he's in love with someone else, and she's everything I'm not. She's beautiful."

The Chief took her hand. "My girl," he said gently, "you are beautiful."

Hot tears welled in her eyes. Aviva ducked her head to hide them. _Not now_, she thought angrily_. Not in front of him. _ She bit on the inside of her cheek, hard enough to draw blood. It wasn't fair. It wasn't _fair._ She had tried so hard, for so long, to be strong, but a few kind words were all it had taken to break her. Surely the Chief would surely despise her now. This thought brought fresh tears to her eyes. Her body convulsed, once, twice, and she began to cry in earnest, sobbing her heart out and hating herself for it.

Worse still, her nose started running. Aviva gasped for breath, wiping her face on her sleeve. Was it actually possible to choke on your own tears? This must be what drowning felt like, struggling to the surface to grab a lungful of air before the misery closed over your head once more. There was no end to it: the tears kept on coming, wave after wave rising from somewhere fathoms deeps inside her, years deep, and the more she cried the deeper and darker the well became. A stone could fall and fall and never hit the bottom.

She folded her arms over her cramping belly. "Oh," she cried, "It hurts."

The Chief put his arm around her and pulled her close. "It'll be all right," he said. Something seemed to be caught in his throat. Aviva looked up, dumbfounded, and saw that he was crying, too.

* * *

_Thanks for reading!_


	71. When You Fall Btwn Waking and Sleeping

_Since it's been so long, here's a quick recap: ShinRa, led by Scarlet, has now openly turned on the Turks. Knox and Rosalind were arrested after being framed for trying to assassinate Scarlet; Tseng and Reno were briefly held prisoner in Hojo's labs, but escaped thanks to Reeve's somewhat unwilling help. While in Shinra's custody Rosalind was brutally tortured and then sold to Don Corneo; however, it turns out that Corneo has heard rumours that Rufus is alive, and so he hands Rosalind over to Cissnei and Mink, hoping that this will gain him the goodwill of the future President. Knox remains missing. Since i__t's too dangerous to try to move Rufus anywhere, he, Reno, Rude and Tseng have hunkered down in the bunker inside the plate, while the rest of the Turks have set up shop at a bar in Wall Market owned by Two-Gun's cousin. Rosalind's sister, the military academy drop-out Elena, also works at this bar, and she isn't happy about the Turk invasion. Meanwhile, over in Corel, Aviva has teamed up with Veld and the ex-Avalanche operative, Shears. Though they failed to save Shalua Rui, they have managed to recover the last of the support materia needed to free Veld's daughter, Elfe, from the summons that is slowly draining her of life. An underground cave-in has left Aviva and Veld trapped inside the Corel mountains; Veld's leg was injured when he fell. Shears went to see if he could find some other way out of the caves, and Aviva and Veld now have been waiting for over a day for him to return..._

_._

**CHAPTER 71: WHEN YOU FALL BETWEEN WAKING AND SLEEPING**

* * *

"Oi oi!" Shears' voice echoed round the cavern. "Anybody there?"

Aviva lifted her head. She hadn't been asleep, exactly - more like drifting inside the big empty spaces of her mind. The weight that had been crushing her heart was gone. She had cried and cried until she had no tears left, and now she felt as if nothing could ever make her cry again. It wasn't a happy feeling, but it was peaceful.

The Chief's arm still lay around her shoulders. His eyes were closed. She tugged at his sleeve. "Commander, Shears is back."

"Hey! Pete! Little Turk! Can you hear me?"

"We can hear you!" she answered. "Shears, we're right here!"

Shears kept calling out, his voice growing louder and louder until at last he came into sight, squeezing himself through the narrow cleft in the rock to stand on the ledge ten feet below them. "You all right there?" he asked. Along with his rope he'd brought a bucket, some pitons, a hammer, and a heavily-laden plastic bag. From this bag he produced two apples, tossing them up to her waiting hands. "Sorry I took so long," he said. "Had to go back to the bike to get these - " He indicated the climbing equipment. "Came across a couple of Ravens sniffing around. I put one down, but I couldn't shake the other. I didn't want to lead him back to you. Took me hours to lose him. Then I had to grab some shut-eye. Taste good?" he asked Aviva, seeing her make short work of the apple.

She wiped her mouth. "Yes. Thank you."

"What time is it?" asked the Chief.

"Not far off noon. Eat. Get your strength back. Then we'll go."

It wasn't easy getting the Chief down to the lower ledge. His injured ankle made him clumsy. She and Shears had to push and pull him through the narrow cleft; he never made a sound, but Aviva could tell he was hurting badly. Shears saw it too - and unlike Aviva, he had no problem telling the Chief what to do. "You better lean on me now, Pete," he said. The Chief tried to object, saying he was fine, it was nothing, he could manage, but Shears wasn't in the mood to argue: he just draped the Chief's arm round his shoulders and gripped his wrist tightly to keep him there. Aviva thought that Shears was probably strong enough to throw the Chief over one shoulder and carry him - and he would too, if he had to, and the Chief knew it.

Still, even after Veld stopped fighting their efforts to help him, he couldn't move much faster than a hobble, so their progress was inevitably slow. They talked as they walked, discussing what to do next. Aviva wanted to see if they could find a way down to the river. She thought there was a chance Dr Rui might still be alive. Shears and the Chief refused to even consider it. No one, they said, could possibly have survived such a fall.

"Let's worry about the living," said Shears.

"Fuhito will come after the materia now," said the Chief. "We don't want him targeting Midgar. Aviva, I'll need you to bring me the two materia you've been keeping in the office."

"I don't think Tseng would let me do that, sir."

The Chief's face darkened. "Tell him that if he really wants to help me, he'll give me the goddamn materia."

"I think he'd want to bring them to you himself, sir."

"Tell him not to be such a bloody idiot. He can't afford to compromise the department any further. He needs to keep right out of it. Tell him I said so - No, tell him it's an order, Veev. Understood?"

They had come to the mouth of the cave. "Be on your guard," Shears reminded them. "Watch out for Ravens."

One by one they stepped into the dazzling sunlight, blinking and shading their eyes. Brilliant white clouds scudded across a sun-bleached sky. In the middle distance hung Gold Saucer, scintillating in the desert heat; a pink haze of dust encircled the far horizon. Aviva thought she had never seen such a beautiful day. She filled her lungs with the fresh air and closed her eyes, revelling in the warmth of the breeze as it moved across her face.

"Fuck," said Shears beside her.

Her eyes flew open.

"Hah - there they are!" a woman's voice rang out from the bottom of the hill. "Soldiers, move out. Surround them!"

The hillside sprang to life: Shinra infantrymen in camouflage fatigues darted from rock to rock with their rifles at the ready. "Where the fuck did _they_ come from?" exclaimed Shears. He turned to Aviva, murder in his face. "You – "

She already had a knife in each hand. At this range, she trusted her knives to be more accurate than her gun. "Get back in the cave, Chief," she cried. "I'll cover you."

"Oh, goody," said the woman, her voice loud and clear in the dry mountain air. "They're going to resist. This _will_ be fun; I'm so glad I came."

Before she'd finished speaking Aviva's eyes had picked her out. Scarlet was standing in the shadow of a dead tree, dressed in an army flak jacket, a pencil skirt, and red patent leather lace-up jackboot, a megaphone in her left hand. Standing by her side was someone Aviva could hardly have failed to recognize at any distance: Colonel Hugo Viljoen.

"Halt, men," Scarlet ordered. The soldiers instantly dropped behind whatever rock or log was nearest. Scarlet raised the megaphone to her lips.

"Pieter Veld - " the air around them seemed to quiver from the impact amplified voice - "I know you can hear me, you mad old dog, so pay attention. You have been condemned on charges of fraud, terrorism and treason. The sentence is death. Your companion has been found guilty of similar charges. Turk, do your duty and arrest those two men."

Shears' big hands made fists. "I should have known -"

"It wasn't me," Aviva protested. "I didn't bring them here. She hates us. He, Colonel Viljoen, he hates us even more."

"Then how'd they know we were here?"

"I don't know. "

"Shut up," said Veld. "Both of you." He had propped himself against a rock, half-sitting, half-leaning, bad leg stiff as a plank. His gun was in his hand.

"Not going to cooperate?" Scarlet boomed. "I would say I'm sorry, only my mother taught me it's wrong to tell lies. All right, men, give it some welly."

Aviva cast a knife at the nearest infantryman, and without waiting to see if it found its mark she threw herself on the Chief, rolling him safely to the ground as the first bullets came zinging overhead. Shears crouched behind another rock, reached inside his shirt, and pulled out a revolver.

From the start Aviva knew this was a fight they couldn't win. Three against a whole battalion? Not even Zack Fair had managed to beat those odds. Her party had the advantage of the high ground, it was true, and the rocks around them offered plenty of cover. But their ammunition was limited, and as Reno had once so memorably observed, knives made crappy ranged weapons. Plus, she had seen what a confuse grenade could do. If even one of Scarlet's soldiers got close enough to cast confuse on them, they were finished. Their only hope was a tactical retreat.

"Over there!" said Veld.

He shot and missed.

Her knife, which left her hand a split-second after he pulled the trigger, did not miss, but she felt no pleasure as the man went down, only anger. Why were they being forced to do this?

If they couldn't win, wouldn't be better to surrender now, so that no one else needed to die -

Quickly she pushed the subversive thought away.

"Don't kill the old Turk," Scarlet shouted through the megaphone. "I want him taken alive."

Glancing to her left, Aviva saw one of Shear's bullets strike an infantrymen in the chest. The force of the bullet's impact sent his body flying backwards, arms flung wide as if to welcome home a loved one, although in fact he was already dead.

"It's not _worth_ it!" Aviva yelled.

"She can't hear you," said the Chief.

"But this is so _stupid!_"

She didn't want any more of these soldiers to die. She couldn't bear to take their lives. This wasn't why she had become a Turk. They were not her enemy; they were Shinra, and so was she. No, if anyone was going to die it should be Colonel Viljoen; he was the one who had brought them here. And what about Field Marshall Heidegger, squeezed into his big leather armchair behind his desk in Midgar, who had given Viljoen the order? Why didn't _he_ put himself in the firing line? Why didn't Scarlet come get them herself if she wanted them so badly? But of course the Director remained safely out of range.

Aviva ducked down behind the rocky cover she was sharing with the Chief. "We can't hold them off forever," she said. "We have to go back inside the cave, sir."

Before he could answer, Scarlet's voice rang out once again. "Men, hold your fire. Well, Veld, was that little hors'd'oeuvre to your taste? Can I tempt you with a second helping?"

"I'm the one she wants," said the Chief. "You go. I'll draw their fire."

"With all due respect, sir, that is not going to happen."

From the bottom of the hill came a heavy, rhythmic clanking. Aviva knew that the sound: one of Scarlet's killer machines was maneuvering itself into position. The Chief recognised it too. His face grew even grimmer.

"I can't run," he said. "I can barely walk. If you stay with me we'll both be captured. I won't let that happen."

"What are you two talking about?" Shears demanded from behind his own rock half a dozen metres away.

"Here's a little something I whipped up earlier," Scarlet trumpeted through the megaphone. "It's merely a prototype, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption."

Aviva risked peeking over the rock to make a quick visual assessment of this new danger. At first glance, it didn't look very threatening, just a cannon barrel suspended between a pair of spindly jointed legs. The whole thing had been painted a dark oil green, but someone with an artist's eye had added orange and yellow flames around the cannon's mouth, and dragon claws on its two big, clunky pyramid feet. It looked more like a child's cheap toy than an engine of war.

"Gunner, prime your weapon," Scarlet ordered.

All the sophisticated engineering for which this woman's department was famous was located at the rear end of the machine: Aviva could see a large metal bulb, when she guessed contained the firing mechanism, set below a prism, or lens, which she thought must be some kind of concentrator. A slot in the prism held a single materia.

At Scarlet's command, the soldier in charge of the weapon stepped smartly forward and turned a switch. A low mosquito hum filled the air, rapidly rising in intensity. Within seconds, Aviva's ears were hurting. Was that what this new weapon did? Some kind of sound attack?

"What do you think of my new baby, Veld? Isn't she beautiful?" Scarlet's ringing tones echoed off the hillside. "The field trials have been very encouraging, but I'm sure you'll agree with me that nothing beats testing in an authentic battle situation. Gunner, prime the weapon."

"Is she going to fire that thing?" said Shears. "There are injured men on this hill. Hey, crazy Shinra lady," he shouted, "You got wounded men here."

"They look pretty dead to me," Scarlet laughed.

Colonel Viljoen chose this moment to object: "Director Scarlet, please. My men are up there. If you could delay - "

"Silence! There's no time."

The materia was glowing now, hot with concentrated energy. The cannon began to throb. Aviva's head felt like it was about to explode.

"We need to get in the cave, sir," she cried. "Quickly -"

She made a lunge as she said this, grabbing the Chief by the elbow and using all her weight to haul him backwards. Shears followed right behind them. They flung themselves sideways, out of the direct line of the blast. "Cover your ears," warned the Chief.

A blinding light filled the cave, followed by a searing heat. The earth heaved. Rocks burst asunder with machinegun-fire cracks; stalagmites crashed to the ground and shattered; chips of stone shaken lose from the ceiling rained like hailstones on her back, neck, calves. A splinter of rock nicked her forehead. Blistering, sand-filled wind rushed passed her face, stinging her cheeks and the tips of her ears.

The light faded. The earth settled. The wind died.

"Are you all right?" said the Chief.

"Yes," said Aviva shakily, getting up onto her knees. "You?"

"Leg's completely buggered. Shears?"

Shears coughed and spat. "Ugh. Got sand in my teeth."

Both his face and the Chief's were freckled with tiny burns from the white-hot sand. Aviva supposed her own face must look the same. By some mercy, none had gone into her eyes, or theirs. And at least they were all still alive.

Outside, on the hill, things were ominously quiet.

"I don't believe it," said Shears. "She killed them. She fuckin' killed them. Her own men - "

"Coo-ee," called Scarlet. "Did the earth move for you too, Veld? Come out, my little chickens. Come out, come out, wherever you are. Don't you want dessert? Mother made it specially for you."

"Great god almighty," said Shears. "And I thought Fuhitowas a fuckin' psychopath."

"We can't let Elfe's materia fall into her hands," said the Chief. "Shears, you must go. Take Aviva with you – "

"No!" she cried.

"Yes. You can't be caught with me. They'd use your treason as an excuse to annihilate the entire department."

"But sir, Scarlet's already seen me - "

The Chief ignored her. To Shears he said, "I'll hold them off as long as I can. With luck you should be able to lose them in the caves. Try to find another way out. Go now, quickly."

Aviva grabbed his sleeve. "I'm not leaving you."

"You'll do as you're told. Shears, get her out of here."

Shears grabbed Aviva by the wrist, and held his other hand out for the Chief to clasp in farewell. "I don't like it, Pete, but I ain't arguing with you. And don't you worry. Elfe's going to be all right, I'll make sure of that. She'll know what you did for her."

"Don't drag this out," said the Chief. "Just go. And Veev, tell Tseng I want him to remember his duty. No heroics. No one dies for me. You make sure he knows I said that. Now bugger off, both of you. Move!" he roared.

* * *

Meanwhile, over in Midgar, Cissnei was jolted from a deep, sweet sleep by a fist whacking her hard across the face.

"No, Tseng - look out! Reno - " Her voice hoarse with terror, Rosalind thrashed wildly, trying to kick off the bedsheets that were tangled round her legs.

Cissnei's first instinct was to throw her arms around her friend, hold her tight, calm her down - but any attempt at constraint only made the panic worse. "Let me go, please, please," Rosalind begged, eyes fixed on the empty space between Cissnei and the wall, staring at something only she could see. "Please don't, please don't. Tseng! Reno!"

"What?" cried Cissnei.

"I can't. Don't make me. They're dead. They're dead!"

"What are you talking about? They're not - oh, my god," Cissnei gasped as understanding dawned. "Is that what those bastards told you? Did they tell you Reno and Tseng are dead?"

Torture took many forms; a Turk knew that better than anyone. Cissnei felt a old rage ignite deep inside her, an overwhelming desire to maim and kill that she had not experienced since childhood. Yet she managed to speak soothingly. "Roz, Roz darling, look at me. It's okay. They're not dead."

For all that her eyes were wide open, Rosalind was still asleep, the prisoner of her own nightmare. "Don't lie to me. Tseng! Reno! Oh - "

Cissnei slapped her. She didn't know what else to do. "Wake up!" she shouted. "Roz, it's me, Cissnei. You're having a dream. Wake up."

Rosalind blinked. Her struggling ceased. Like a blind person, she pointed her face in Cissnei's direction, but her eyes remained glassy, unfocused. "Ciss?"

"Fucking _listen_. Tseng and Reno are alive, okay? They're not dead. They were captured for a while but they escaped. They're not dead." She gave Rosalind's shoulders a good shake, and added, "You must believe me."

Rosalind was looking at her now, really seeing her. "You came back?" she said as if she didn't dare believe it; as if this was the dream.

Cissnei longed to hug her, but was afraid of setting her off again. "Did you hear what just I said? Tseng and Reno are alive."

Rosalind smiled. "I knew you wouldn't betray us."

The moment the words left her mouth she sank back onto the bed, closed her eyes, and was instantly asleep again - if she had ever really been awake.

Cissnei stared at her, shaken. _Did that actually just happen?_ _Or am I the one having the nightmare?_

No, she was definitely awake. Her heart was racing as if she'd run a mile; there would be no more sleep for her. Outside the window the sun was shining. _Morning already_, she thought, before remembering that she wasn't in Gongaga any more; she was in the slums of Midgar, where the light wasn't really sunshine, and morning was the same colour as night. She had no idea what time it was, but she felt as if she'd been dead to the world for hours.

Downstairs people were moving about, talking. She recognised the voices of her fellow Turks. Plates were being scraped, chairs pushed back. The air was full of such good smells - fried onions, hot bread, bacon, coffee, beer - that her mouth began to water, and she realised she was very, very hungry.

Footsteps were coming up the stairs. The door had been left slightly ajar, but all the same her visitor knocked before pushing it open just enough to show his face. "Skeeter," she said.

"We heard shouts. Is everything all right? Is Roz okay?"

Cissnei looked down at her friend, curled on her side as peaceful as a sleeping child, both hands tucked under her cheek. "She had a bad dream. It's over now."

He came in, shut the door, walked over to the bed, and stood for a while just looking at Rosalind, before reaching out with gentle fingers to stroke her ruined hair. His eyes were suspiciously bright. "If I ever get my hands on the ones who did this," he said thickly, "I swear on my mother's grave, they're going to wish they'd never been born."

"Not if I get my hands on them first, buddy," said Cissnei. "I don't plan on leaving anything for you. Where'd Mink go?"

"Out with the others, working. Now that we've got Roz back, we can focus all out efforts on finding Knox."

"Do you honestly think he's still alive?"

"Of course!" Skeeter exclaimed, looking shocked that she could even suggest such a thing. "Why wouldn't he be? Roz is."

Cissnei felt a prickle of irritation. Didn't this kid know anything? Always assume the worse: that was the first rule of survival. Never hope. Or if you couldn't help yourself, then fucking well keep quiet about it, and above all don't go rubbing it in people's faces.

Did Skeeter think she _wanted_ to believe that Knox was dead? _Fuck you_, she almost snapped, _he was my friend too. But don't you see? The only reason Heidegger didn't kill Roz is so he could humiliate us by selling her off to a whorehouse. What could he do with a guy like Knox? What reason could he possibly have to keep Knox alive?_

She didn't really understand what made her bite her tongue. Maybe she was just being superstitious: as long as one person truly believed that Knox was still alive, he wouldn't die. Or maybe it was because she liked Skeeter and didn't want to be the bitch who crushed his optimism. He wasn't a bad kid. Or at least... Well, probably it would be truer to say that he must have been a good kid once, and still carried the golden glow of that happy childhood around him like sunshine wherever he went. Cissnei didn't really understand how the product of a happy childhood could possibly be made over into a successful Turk, but apparently Skeeter was the living proof that it could be done. Not that he looked the part right now, standing there dressed in his jeans and t-shirt, with that scarf wrapped round his neck like some kind of foppy art student. You had to look into his eyes. Then you could see it.

"Hey," he exclaimed, slapping his forehead. "I completely forgot! It's mid-afternoon already; you must be starving. Why don't I take over here, and you can go get yourself something to eat? I'd love to sit with Roz for a while. It makes me happy just to look at her. I can still hardly believe she's back with us, safe and sound."

Cissnei knew that if she was to find a place for herself among Tseng's Turks (_Tseng's Turks!_ How strange that sounded), she needed to honour the bonds they had forged between themselves in her absence. Rosalind and this curly-haired, baby-faced boy had been through things together and shared experiences in which she had no part and never would. If she couldn't accept that, then she no longer belonged here.

So she stifled the little niggle of jealousy (_again! She was getting good at this!)_ yielded her friend to her colleague's care, and went downstairs, first to make herself a toasted cheese sandwich and then to call Tseng, ostensibly to see if he had any new orders for her but really just to hear his voice. And update him on Rosalind's condition; he would definitely want to know about that. And maybe, if she could summon the nerve, if she could make the inquiry sound casual enough, she'd ask after Reno, too.

.

Shears hurried from cavern to cavern, dragging Aviva along by the wrist. She tried to dig her heels in, tried to twist herself free, but his grip was like a vise.

"You can let go of me now," she cried at last.

"No chance. You heard what Pete said."

"Yes I_ did_," she snapped back. Getting angry with him seemed preferable to breaking down in tears. "Don't worry. I won't go running back. I know how to take an order."

Shears hesitated. "All right," he said, and released her. Aviva rubbed her wrist vigorously. "Here." He handed her the torch. "You go first. I'll bring up the rear."

Soon they came to a place where the tunnel split. "Which way now?" she asked him.

"Your guess is as good as mine, little Turk. You pick, I'll follow. "

She picked left.

Some hours later, after many wrong turns and dead ends, they stumbled out onto the mountainside and paused to rest for a few moments, filling their lungs with deep gulps of fresh air. The sun had begun to set: its slanting rays turned the peaks of the mountains to gold, and plunged the valleys deep into purple shadow. Less than an hour of daylight remained. Aviva scanned the horizon, searching for a landmark she recognised.

"Look," she said, pointing north at a tiny, cloud-like plume of steam rising from what must be the reactor.

Shears had already set off down an overgrown path. "This way," he called back over his shoulder.

Two hours of vigorous hiking followed. The sun set; darkness fell, and when they finally came to the place where he had hidden the bike, it was by the colourless light of the full moon that they were able to see the Raven before it saw them.

It sat straddling the bike, gloved hands on the handlebars, turning the wheel from side to side as if it were a child playing with a toy, or a lost soul trying to remember what it had once been. Its ears were inhumanly sharp. When Aviva's foot crushed a dry leaf, it immediately stopped what it was doing and turned towards them, head swiveling on its neck like an owl.

The first shot from Shear's mako gun burned a hole clean through the Raven's spine. It crumpled to the ground, temporarily paralysed. His second shot, delivered while he was standing over its fallen body, vaporised everything from the shoulders up.

"Will that be enough?" she asked.

"Should be. I ain't sticking around to find out. Let's hope it didn't empty the tank."

He checked the gauge. The fuel hadn't been touched. "Can't they _think_?" asked Aviva.

"They do what they're told to do. That's all."

"What _are_ they? How do they get like this? Why does he call them Ravens? What does he _do_ to them?"

"Long story. We gotta make tracks now. You're riding pillion. This is gonna be a rough ride, so wrap your arms round my waist and hold on tight."

All through the night they rode across the mountains, making a wide detour west of the reactor, coming down onto the coastal plain just before dawn. The need to call the Boss had become a hunger in Aviva's belly; it was all she could think of. She had assumed they would make straight for Costa del Sol, so when Shears turned off the main road onto a dirt track heading north, she protested that he was going the wrong way. He turned his head to shout over his shoulder, "We ain't takin' the Shinra ferry. They got soldiers everywhere looking for us. If we're gonna get to Midgar we gotta sneak in. Trust me."

The bike's fuel ran out within sight of the sea. "Guess I'll have to push it from here," he said. "You okay to walk? It's not far."

When they came to the crest of a hill, Shears stopped, and pointed down at a little fishing village snuggled into a cove about a mile away. "That's where we're going," he told her. "Their head man owes me a favour. A couple of years ago me and Pete was out west in that chocobo country over beyond Rocket Town - we had some money, right, so we'd hired a car, and on the way we met this kid hitch-hiking, and we could see right off he weren't any more'n thirteen. We asked him where he was heading and he said he didn't care, he'd go as far as we would take him. So we let him ride with us, just chit-chatting, you know, and Pete's doing that thing he does, prying, trying to find out what this kid's story is, and after a while it all comes out: he's run away from home to join Avalanche. Long story short, we let him knock around with us for while till he'd got it out of his system, and then we brung him home, and his old man was so damn grateful he kissed me. He'd thought his son was dead for sure. We'll be safe there, little Turk, don't you worry. Those people'd do anything for Pete and me."

He spoke truth. The whole village turned out to greet them. Food and drink were laid before them; hot baths and beds were offered; no favour Shears could ask would be too great. A change of clothing to replace Aviva's ruined suit? They would bring her a range to choose from. A boat and a pilot to sail them east across the Inland Sea to Midgar? No problem: the headman would consider it an honour if they would let him be their guide. A phone to call the office? Alas, they regretted it was not possible; their unworthy village was too remote for network coverage.

"I'm gonna get some shut-eye now," Shears told her, pointing in the direction of the hammocks that had been provided for their use. "You should do the same. We got a long night ahead of us."

Aviva was so tired she was almost beyond sleep, sinking instead into that strange state of semi-conscious dreaming, halfway between sleep and wakefulness. Images over which she had no control chased one another through her mind: the Chief handcuffed, bruised and battered, locked in the cargo bay of the Gelnika; Tseng's angry face; Reno's shock and disbelief: _You abandoned him? _Before she could answer, Reno turned into Shalua Rui, writhing like a fish on the tooth of the landworm, and that Shalua became Shalua dressed in one of Hojo's labcoats, smiling as she watched something that had once been a man bob up and down in a tank filled with mako - and then the glass shattered and a Raven burst forth, and Shears blew its head off and it became a little girl with brown eyes like the Chief's eyes, and when Aviva looked into those eyes she saw a monster staring back at her, silently mouthing the words _Help me. _She couldn't tell if she was dreaming or remembering.

Between one heartbeat and another she felt herself slip and fall, like Shalua had fallen. Had been allowed to fall. And as she fell, the unformed thought that had been hovering in the back of her mind for the last two days finally took shape:

_He knew I had the materia. Did he let go of her to catch me?_

The thud of her heart contracting sounded like a body hitting the ground; she jerked awake, staring wide-eyed into Shear's face. His hand was on her shoulder. "Sorry," he said, "Didn't mean to startle you. Tide's turning, little Turk. Time to go."

They arrived at the dock to find the headman and his son tying the last knot in the ropes they'd used to lash the bike amidships. "Come help me hoist the sail," the headman beckoned. With the bike on board there was no room for extra bodies. Aviva and Shears would be both passengers and crew.

"I have to let Tseng know," she told him as they cast off. "It can't wait till we get to Midgar. I have to find a phone."

Shears nodded agreement. "We'll put in somewhere on the Costa. You can call him from one of the hotels."

It was a beautiful, chilly night; Aviva soon had reason to be thankful for the thick cable-knit jumper her hosts had insisted she take. The sky was clear, the moon bright, the wind strong from the southwest: perfect sailing weather. As they rounded the chalk cliffs at the northern cape of the Sol peninsula the holiday coastline came into sight, its long sandy beaches pale in the moonlight, its restaurants, bars and hotels glittering like a shoal of stars. The headman steered their boat into a little marina, and Aviva jumped out onto the dock. "If I'm not back in fifteen minutes, leave without me," she said. Then, clutching a handful of gil coins, she went running up the hill to the inn.

* * *

It had taken Tseng, Rude and Reno the best part of two days to build an escape route from the bunker. They began by dismantling the drywall in the second bedroom and unscrewing the metal plates from the steel girders. Rufus's cat was the silent witness to their efforts. It sat on one of the top bunks, watching them through slitted eyes while they struggled and swore and sweated, and occasionally twitching an ear just to prove that it hadn't been turned to stone.

"Thinks it's our fucking supervisor now," Reno grunted.

Behind the metal plates they found a concrete wall, which Rude guessed to be about a foot thick. "Now what?" said Reno.

All three of them thought for a bit.

"Ice," said Tseng at last.

His plan was to use the materia to erode the wall. Blasting through it with Fire or Earth might have been quicker, but Ice had the advantage of being almost completely silent, and the force was easier to contain. The downside was that it took hours. With each re-casting, the Ice froze anew and expanded a little further, slowly fissuring the concrete with a spider's-web of minute cracks.

While this demolition work was going on, Rufus mostly remained at his computer. Only once did he come to lean against the door-jamb, arms folded, watching them, but Tseng never acknowledged his presence and Rufus never uttered a word, and after a couple of minutes he went back to his keyboard. Reno could have sworn he heard Tseng let out a sigh of relief, like he'd been holding his breath the whole time Rufus was standing there.

They consumed a case and a half of ether trying to break through that concrete wall. When it finally started to crumble, they were mentally drained and physically exhausted. Still their work wasn't finished. First they had to make the hole big enough for the biggest of them - Rude - to pass through, and then they had to conceal the hole behind an arrangement of whatever crates, sacks and barrels they could scavenge from the corridors nearby. When this was done, they staggered back to the sitting area and collapsed onto the sofas.

"I am completely and utterly shagged out," said Reno. "Beer?"

"Unh," Rude grunted, shutting his eyes.

Tseng had stretched out full length on the kitten sofa, one arm flung over his eyes as if the light hurt them. His sweat pants were filthy, his singlet drenched with sweat; his hair, which had worked itself lose from its tie, was grey with powdered concrete. _Heh, _thought Reno. He wished he had a camera. Then again, he wasn't looking so good either: he hadn't shaved for the last two days, his stubbly cheeks were itching like _crazy_, his hair felt all crusty, and he could feel the streaks of mingled sweat and dust hardening like clay on his own pale skin.

In the background Rufus's clean fingers went _tap-tap-clickety-tap_.

Reno lifted an arm and sniffed his armpit. "Oh, man. I reek. Fight you for the shower, boss."

Tseng's only answer was a vague wave of the hand. _You go first_.

Right. You had to pass by the computers to get to the bathroom, and so Tseng avoided using it whenever Rufus was working in the office. Reno had to hand it to them: in such a confined space, it was pretty impressive how they managed never to come face to face with each other. He knew how they were doing it, too. Each of them was constantly thinking about the other. At any given moment, each one knew exactly where the other one was; there wasn't a single square inch of the bunker that wasn't filled with their mutual awareness. Sometimes Reno felt like he was being squeezed out of air to breathe.

"So," he said to Rude, "Beer?"

Rude's only answer was a snuffling snore. The big Turk had fallen asleep with his mouth open, sunglasses slightly askew.

"O-kay," said Reno. "I'll get the beer then, shall I?"

Tseng didn't react, so after a moment Reno heaved himself up and slouched into the kitchen. The clock on the cooker said 2.15. Did that mean a.m., or p.m? Funny how quickly you lost track of night and day. Opening the fridge, he helped himself to a beer from Rude's ration. _No more sitting ducks in loser sauce for you, fat Field Marshall, _he thought triumphantly as he popped the cap with his teeth. _Turks always find a way. _ Aloud he said, "Cheers, partner," and raised the bottle in a brief salute before tipping the ice-cold liquid down his parched and dusty throat.

Bliss.

Reno was allowed precisely ten seconds in which to savour it. Then he heard Rufus say, "Tseng - "

It wasn't just the fact that Rufus was addressing Tseng directly, though that alone would have been enough to set off an alarm in Reno's hypervigilant mind. It was the way in which he said it: not loud, and perfectly calm, too calm - urgent, commanding, completely different from his customary princely drawl. _Come here and listen to me right now_ was the message his tone conveyed, and it never occurred to Reno to do anything other than obey.

Putting down his beer, he returned to the other room. Tseng had sat up and was trying to brush the dust-matted hair out of his eyes, while Rude yawned and scratched his scalp. Rufus stood beside the folding screen that separated the office area (his territory) from the three sofas (Tseng's territory), waiting patiently for the two of them to finish waking up. When Reno came in, Rufus automatically glanced his way. Their eyes met.

"What?" said Reno.

Rufus didn't answer, and turned back to look at Tseng, apparently checking to see if he was sufficiently awake now.

Tseng rubbed a hand over his face. "I'm listening."

Still Rufus hesitated. Reno had never seen the V.P. look so unsure of himself before. It was almost as if he wished he hadn't spoken; as if that quiet, urgent "Tseng" had burst from him against his will, and now he didn't know how to stop the chain of events that was about to unfold.

"Go on," said Tseng. He sounded short-tempered, but it was probably just the tiredness talking. From where Reno was standing, the V.P. looked as if he was about to be sick. Tseng couldn't see this, because he was sitting with his back to Rufus.

Rufus said, "Something's happened. Something that changes everything."

"Your Old Man's dead," said Reno. He thought that was what it must be.

Rufus shook his head. "No. It's Veld. He's been captured. I read it just now, in the Board memorandum. Scarlet took an army to Corel and brought him back here. My father's scheduled his execution for the day after tomorrow."

Rude sat speechless. Tseng, grey-faced, grey-haired, hollow-eyed, seemed to have aged twenty years in an instant.

"It gets worse," said Rufus. "Apparently Aviva was seen with him, and Shears too, although they managed to avoid capture. Tseng, if you've been in contact with him all this time and never told me..."

He didn't bother to finish the sentence.

And then, before anyone else could speak, Rude's phone rang.

* * *

_Dear readers and followers, I'm so sorry for the long delay. I'll try not to let it happen again. _

_In case anyone finds Rosalind's nightmare a bit unbelievable, I just wanted to say that my younger son acts in exactly the same way when he experiences his (thankfully rare) night terrors. Of course, he hasn't gone through anything like Roz's trauma, so his nocturnal rantings, though bizarre, are usually quite funny - and often about football. "Ref! Ref! Noooo! Are you blind?" In this state you can have quite rational conversations with him, but when he wakes up he can't remember anything he said._

_Oh, and it's Aviva calling Rude's phone, in case you haven't guessed. First she tried calling Tseng, but got one of the army operators; then she tried Reno's number and got the same thing. As you can imagine, this threw her into a bit of a panic. Plus, she's using a hotel pay phone and she's almost out of coins. I tried to work all of this into the chapter, but no matter what I did it remained stubbornly long-winded, repetitive, and predictable, so it had to go. _

_I'll leave it to you to imagine how happy she is when she finally hears Reno's voice._


End file.
